UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


/ 


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J 


3^ 


ONE   WAY   OUT 

A  MIDDLE-CLASS  NEW-ENGLANDER 
EMIGRATES  TO  AMERICA 


ONE    WAY    OUT 


A  MIDDLE-CLASS  NEW-ENGLANDER 
EMIGRATES  TO  AMERICA 


BY 

WILLIAM   CARLETON 


BOSTON 

SMALL,   MAYNARD   &   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  191 1 

By  Small,  Maynard  &  Company 

(incorporated) 


Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 


Published  January,  2S,  1911  ;  second  printing  January 

Third  printing  February  ;  fourth  printing  March 

Fifth  printing,  October,  191 1 


Presswork  by  The  University  Press, 
Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


TO  HER 
WHO  WASN'T  AFRAID 


UJ 

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'MyiViV. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I  A  Born  and  Bred  New  Englander  .       i 

II  Thirty  Dollars  a  Week   .     .     .     .     i8 

III  The  Middle  Class  Hell     ....     37 

IV  We  Emigrate  to  America  ....     53 
V    We  Prospect ^7 

VI  I  Become  a  Day  Laborer       ...     82 

VII    Nine  Dollars  a  Week 94 

VIII    Sunday 112 

IX    Plans  for  the  Future 125 

X    The  Emigrant  Spirit 146 

XI    New  Opportunities 165 

XII    Our  First  Winter 183 

XIII  I  Become  a  Citizen 200 

XIV  Fifteen  Dollars  a  Week  .     .     .     .216 
XV    The  Gang 234 

XVI  Dick  Finds  a  Way  Out,  Too  .     .     .  252 

XVII    The  Second  Year 266 

XVIII    Maturing    Plans 283 

XIX  Once  Again  a  New  Englander     .     ,  298 


ONE  WAY   OUT 


ONE  WAY  OUT 

CHAPTER  I 

A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER 

My  great-grandfather  was  killed  in  the  Rev- 
olution ;  my  grandfather  fought  in  the  War  of 
1812;  my  father  sacrificed  his  health  in  the 
Civil  War;  but  I,  though  born  in  New  Eng- 
land, am  the  first  of  my  family  to  emigrate  to 
this  country — the  United  States  of  America. 
That  sounds  like  a  riddle  or  a  paradox.  It 
isn't ;  it's  a  plain  statement  of  fact. 

As  a  matter  of  convenience  let  me  call  my- 
self Carleton.  I've  no  desire  to  make  public 
my  life  for  the  sake  of  notoriety.  My  only 
idea  in  writing  these  personal  details  is  the 
hope  that  they  may  help  some  poor  devil  out 
of  the  same  hole  in  which  I  found  myself  mired. 
They  are  of  too  sacred  a  nature  to  share  ex- 
cept impersonally.  Even  behind  the  disguise 
of  an  assumed  name  I  passed  some  mighty  un- 
comfortable hours  a  few  months  ago  when  I 

I 


2  ONE  WAY  OUT 

sketched  out  for  a  magazine  and  saw  in  cold 
print  what  I'm  now  going  to  give  in  full. 
It  made  me  feel  as  though  I  had  pulled  down 
the  walls  of  my  house  and  was  living  my  life 
open  to  the  view  of  the  street.  For  a  man 
whose  home  means  what  it  does  to  me,  there's 
nothing  pleasant  about  that. 

However,  I  received  some  letters  follow- 
ing that  brief  article  which  made  the  dis- 
comfort seem  worth  while.  My  wife  and  I 
read  them  over  with  something  like  awe. 
They  came  from  Maine  and  they  came 
from  Texas;  they  came  from  the  north,  they 
came  from  the  south,  until  we  numbered  our 
unseen  friends  by  the  hundred.  Running 
through  these  letters  was  the  racking  cry  that 
had  once  rended  our  own  hearts — "How  to  get 
out!"  As  we  read  some  of  them  our  throats 
grew  lumpy. 

"God  help  them,"  said  my  wife  over  and 
over  again. 

As  we  read  others,  we  felt  very  glad  that 
our  lives  had  been  in  some  way  an  inspiration 
to  them.  After  talking  the  whole  matter  over 
we  decided  that  if  it  helped  any  to  let  people 
know  how  we  ourselves  pulled  out,  why  it  was 
our  duty  to  do  so.     For  that  purpose,  which  is 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  3 

the  purpose  of  this  book,  Carleton  is  as  good  a 
name  as  any. 

My  people  were  all  honest,  plodding,  middle- 
class  Americans.  They  stuck  where  they 
were  born,  accepted  their  duties  as  they  came, 
earned  a  respectable  living  and  died  without 
having  money  enough  left  to  make  a  will  worth 
while.  They  were  all  privates  in  the  ranks. 
But  they  were  the  best  type  of  private — hon- 
est, intelligent,  and  loyal  unto  death.  They 
were  faithful  to  their  families  and  unswerv- 
ing in  their  duty  to  their  country.  The  rec- 
ords of  their  lives  aren't  interesting,  but  they 
are  as  open  as  daylight. 

My  father  seems  to  have  had  at  first  a  bit 
more  ambition  stirring  within  him  than  his 
ancestors.  He  started  in  the  lumber  business 
for  himself  in  a  small  way  but  with  the  first 
call  for  troops  sold  out  and  enlisted.  He  did 
not  distinguish  himself  but  he  fought  in  more 
battles  than  many  a  man  who  came  out  a  cap- 
tain. He  didn't  quit  until  the  war  was  over. 
Then  he  crawled  back  home  subdued  and 
sick.  He  refused  ever  to  draw  a  pension  be- 
cause he  felt  it  was  as  much  a  man's  duty  to 
fight  for  his  country  as  for  his  wife.  He  se- 
cured a  position  as  head  clerk  and  confidential 


4  ONE  WAY  OUT 

man  with  an  old  established  lumber  firm  and 
here  he  stuck  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  earned  a 
decent  living  and  in  the  course  of  time  married 
and  occupied  a  comfortable  home.  My  mother 
died  when  I  was  ten  and  after  that  father 
sold  his  house  and  we  boarded.  It  was  a 
dreary  enough  life  for  both  of  us.  Mother 
was  the  sort  of  mother  who  lives  her  whole 
life  in  caring  for  her  men  folks  so  that  her  go- 
ing left  us  as  helpless  as  babies.  For  a  long 
while  we  didn't  even  know  when  to  change  our 
stockings.  But  obeying  the  family  tradition, 
father  accepted  his  lot  stoically  and  as  final. 
No  one  in  our  family  ever  married  twice. 
With  the  death  of  the  wife  and  mother  the 
home  ceased  and  that  was  the  end  of  it. 

I  remember  my  father  with  some  pride.  He 
was  a  tall,  old-fashioned  looking  man  with  a 
great  deal  of  quiet  dignity.  I  came  to  know 
him  much  better  in  the  next  few  years  after 
mother  died  than  ever  before  for  we  lived  to- 
gether in  one  room  and  had  few  friends.  I 
can  see  him  now  sitting  by  a  small  kerosene 
lamp  after  I  had  gone  to  bed  clumsily  trying  to 
mend  some  rent  in  my  clothes.  I  thought 
it  an  odd  occupation  for  a  man  but  I  know  now 
what  he  was  about.     I  think  his  love  for  my 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  5 

mother  must  have  been  deep  for  he  talked  to 
me  a  great  deal  of  her  and  seemed  much  more 
concerned  about  my  future  on  her  account 
than  on  either  his  own  or  mine.  I  think  it 
was  she — she  was  a  woman  of  some  spirit — 
who  persuaded  him  to  consider  sending  me  to 
college.  This  accounted  partly  for  the  mend- 
ing although  there  was  some  sentiment  about 
it  too.  I  think  he  liked  to  feel  that  he  was 
carrying  out  her  work  for  me  even  in  such  a 
small  matter  as  this. 

How  much  he  was  earning  and  how  much 
he  saved  I  never  knew.  I  went  to  school  and 
had  all  the  common  things  of  the  ordinary 
boy  and  I  don't  remember  that  I  ever  asked 
him  for  any  pocket  money  but  what  he  gave 
it  to  me.  It  was  towards  the  end  of  my  senior 
year  in  the  high  school  that  I  began  to  notice 
a  change  in  him.  He  was  at  times  strangely 
excited  and  at  other  times  strangely  blue.  He 
asked  me  a  great  many  questions  about  my 
preference  in  the  matter  of  a  college  and  bade 
me  keep  well  up  in  my  studies.  He  began  to 
skimp  a  little  and  I  found  out  afterw^ards  that 
one  reason  he  grew  so  thin  was  because  he  did 
away  with  his  noon  meal.  It  makes  my  blood 
boil  now  when  I  remember  where  the  fruit  of 


6  ONE  WAY  OUT 

this  self-sacrifice  went.  I  wouldn't  recall  it 
here  except  as  a  humble  tribute  to  his  memory. 

One  night  I  came  back  to  the  room  and 
though  it  was  not  yet  dark  I  was  surprised  to 
see  a  crack  of  yellow  light  creeping  out  from 
beneath  the  sill.  Suspecting  something  was 
wrong,  I  pushed  open  the  door  and  saw  my 
father  seated  by  the  lamp  with  a  pair  of 
trousers  I  had  worn  when  a  kid  in  his  hands. 
His  head  was  bent  and  he  was  trying  to  sew. 
I  went  to  his  side  and  asked  him  what  the 
trouble  was.  He  looked  up  but  he  didn't  know 
me.  He  never  knew  me  again.  He  died  a 
few  days  afterwards.  I  found  then  that  he 
had  invested  all  his  savings  in  a  wild-cat  mining 
scheme.     They  had  been  swept  away. 

So  at  eighteen  I  was  left  alone  with  the  only 
capital  that  succeeding  generations  of  my 
family  ever  inherited — a  common  school  edu- 
cation and  a  big,  sound  physique.  My  father's 
tragic  death  was  a  heavy  blow  but  the  mere 
fact  that  I  was  thrown  on  my  own  resources  did 
not  dishearten  me.  In  fact  the  prospect  rather 
roused  me.  I  had  soaked  in  the  humdrum 
atmosphere  of  the  boarding  house  so  long  that 
the  idea  of  having  to  earn  my  own  living  came 
rather  as  an  adventure.     While  dependent  on 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  7 

my  father,  I  had  been  chained  to  this  one  room 
and  this  one  city,  but  now  I  feh  as  though  the 
whole  wide  world  had  suddenly  been  opened  up 
to  me.  I  had  no  particular  ambition  beyond 
earning  a  comfortable  living  and  I  was  sure 
enough  at  eighteen  of  being  able  to  do  this. 
If  I  chose,  I  could  go  to  sea — there  wasn't  a 
vessel  but  what  would  take  so  husky  a  young- 
ster ;  if  I  wished,  I  could  go  into  railroading — 
here  again  there  was  a  demand  for  youth  and 
brawn.  I  could  go  into  a  factory  and  learn 
manufacturing  or  I  could  go  into  an  office  and 
learn  a  business.  I  was  young,  I  was  strong, 
I  was  unfettered.  There  is  no  one  on  earth  so 
free  as  such  a  young  man.  I  could  settle  in 
New  York  or  work  my  way  west  and  settle  in 
Seattle  or  go  north  into  Canada.  My  legs 
were  stout  and  I  could  walk  if  necessary.  And 
wherever  I  was,  I  had  only  to  stop  and  offer 
the  use  of  my  back  and  arms  in  return  for 
food  and  clothes.  Most  men  feel  like  this  only 
once  in  their  lives.  In  a  few  years  they  be- 
come fettered  again — this  time  for  good. 

Having  no  inclination  towards  the  one  thing 
or  the  other,  I  took  the  first  opportunity  that 
offered.  A  chum  of  mine  had  entered  the  em- 
ploy of  the  United  Woollen  Company  and  see- 


8  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ing  another  vacancy  there  in  the  clerical  de- 
partment, he  persuaded  me  to  join  him.  I  be- 
gan at  five  dollars  a  week.  I  was  put  at  work 
adding  up  columns  of  figures  that  had  no  more 
meaning  to  me  than  the  problems  in  the  school 
arithmetic.  But  it  wasn't  hard  work  and  my 
hours  were  short  and  my  associates  pleasant. 
After  a  while  I  took  a  certain  pride  in  being 
part  of  this  vast  enterprise.  My  chum  and  I 
hired  a  room  together  and  we  both  felt  like 
pretty  important  business  men  as  we  bought 
our  paper  on  the  car  every  morning  and  went 
down  town. 

It  took  close  figuring  to  do  anything  but  live 
that  first  year  and  yet  we  pushed  our  way  with 
the  crowd  into  the  nigger  heavens  and  saw 
most  of  the  good  shows.  I  had  never  been  to 
the  theatre  before  and  I  liked  it. 

Next  year  I  received  a  raise  of  five  dollars 
and  watched  the  shows  from  the  rear  of  the 
first  balcony.  That  is  the  only  change  the 
raise  made  that  I  can  remember  except  that  I 
renewed  my  stock  of  clothes.  The  only  thing 
I'm  sure  of  is  that  at  the  end  of  the  second 
year  I  didn't  have  anything  left  over. 

That  is  true  of  the  next  six  years.  My 
salary  was  advanced  steadily  to  twenty  dollars 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  9 

and  at  that  time  it  took  just  twenty  dollars  a 
week  for  me  to  live.  I  wasn't  extravagant 
and  I  wasn't  dissipated  but  every  raise  found 
a  new  demand.  It  seemed  to  work  automatic- 
ally. You  might  almost  say  that  our  salaries 
were  not  raised  at  all  but  that  we  were  pro- 
moted from  a  ten  dollar  plane  of  life  to  a  fif- 
teen dollar  plane  and  then  to  a  twenty.  And 
we  all  went  together — that  is  the  men  who 
started  together.  Each  advance  meant  un- 
consciously the  wearing  of  better  clothes,  room- 
ing at  better  houses,  eating  at  better  restau- 
rants, smoking  better  tobacco,  and  more  fre- 
quent amusements.  This  left  us  better  satis- 
fied of  course  but  after  all  it  left  us  just  where 
we  began.  Life  didn't  mean  much  to  any  of 
us  at  this  time  and  if  we  were  inclined  to  look 
ahead  why  there  were  the  big  salaried  jobs  be- 
fore us  to  dream  about.  But  even  if  a  man 
had  been  forehanded  and  of  a  saving  nature, 
he  couldn't  have  done  much  without  sacrificing 
the  only  friends  most  of  us  had — his  office  as- 
sociates. For  instance — to  save  five  dollars  a 
week  at  this  time  I  would  have  had  to  drop 
back  into  the  fifteen  dollars  a  week  crowd  and 
I'd  have  been  as  much  out  of  place  there  as  a 
boy  dropped  into  a  lower  grade  at  school.     I 


lO  ONE  WAY  OUT 

remember  that  when  I  was  finally  advanced 
another  five  dollars  I  half-heartedly  resolved 
to  put  that  amount  in  the  bank  weekly.  But 
at  this  point  the  crowd  all  joined  a  small  coun- 
try club  and  I  had  either  to  follow  or  drop  out 
of  their  lives.  Of  course  in  looking  back  I 
can  see  where  I  might  have  done  differently 
but  I  wasn't  looking  back  then — nor  very  far 
ahead  either.  If  it  would  have  prevented  my 
joining  the  country  club  I'm  glad  I  didn't. 

It  was  out  there  that  I  met  the  girl  who  be- 
came my  wife.  My  best  reason  for  remaining 
anon}Tnous  is  the  opportunity  it  will  give  me 
to  tell  about  Ruth.  I  want  to  feel  free  to  rave 
about  her  if  I  wish.  She  objected  in  the  mag- 
azine article  and  she  objects  even  more 
strongly  now  but,  as  before,  I  must  have  an 
uncramped  hand  in  this.  The  chances  are 
that  I  shall  talk  more  about  her  than  I  did  the 
first  time.  The  w^hole  scheme  of  my  life,  be- 
ginning, middle  and  end,  swings  around  her. 
Without  her  inspiration  I  don't  like  to  think 
what  the  end  of  me  might  have  been.  And  it's 
just  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  stress  of  the 
fight. 

I  was  twenty-six  when  I  met  Ruth  and  she 
was  eighteen.     She  came  out  to  the  club  one 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  ii 

Saturday  afternoon  to  watch  some  tennis.  It 
happened  that  I  had  worked  into  the  finals  of 
the  tournament  but  that  day  I  wasn't  playing 
very  well.  I  was  beaten  in  the  first  set,  six- 
two.  What  was  worse  I  didn't  care  a  hang  if 
I  was.  I  had  found  myself  feeling  like  this 
about  a  lot  of  things  during  those  last  few 
months.  Then  as  I  made  ready  to  serve  the 
second  set  I  happened  to  see  in  the  front  row 
of  the  crowd  to  the  right  of  the  court  a  slight 
girl  with  blue  eyes.  She  was  leaning  forward 
looking  at  me  with  her  mouth  tense  and  her 
fists  tight  closed.  Somehow  I  had  an  idea  that 
she  wanted  me  to  win.  I  don't  know  why,  be- 
cause I  was  sure  I'd  never  seen  her  before ;  but 
I  thought  that  perhaps  she  had  bet  a  pair 
of  gloves  or  a  box  of  candy  on  me.  If  she  had, 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  she'd  get  them.  I 
Started  in  and  they  said,  afterwards,  I  never 
played  better  tennis  in  my  life.  At  any  rate  I 
beat  my  man. 

After  the  game  I  found  someone  to  intro- 
duce me  to  her  and  from  that  moment  on  there 
was  nothing  else  of  so  great  consequence  in 
my  life.  I  learned  all  about  her  in  the  course 
of  the  next  few  weeks.  Her  family,  too,  was 
distinctly  middle-class,  in  the  sense  that  none 


12  ONE  WAY  OUT 

of  them  had  ever  done  anything  to  distinguish 
themselves  either  for  good  or  bad.  Her  par- 
ents Hved  on  a  small  New  Hampshire  farm  and 
she  had  just  been  graduated  from  the  village 
academy  and  had  come  to  town  to  visit  her 
aunt.  The  latter  was  a  tall,  lean  woman,  who, 
after  the  death  of  her  husband  had  been  forced 
to  keep  lodgers  to  eke  out  a  living.  Ruth 
showed  me  pictures  of  her  mother  and  father, 
and  they  might  have  been  relatives  of  mine  as 
far  as  looks  went.  The  father  had  caught  an 
expression  from  the  granite  hills  which  most 
New  England  farmers  get — a  rugged,  strained 
look;  the  mother  was  lean  and  kind  and  wor- 
ried.    I  met  them  later  and  liked  them. 

Ruth  was  such  a  woman  as  my  mother  would 
have  taken  to;  clear  and  laughing  on  the  sur- 
face, but  with  great  depths  hidden  among  the 
golden  shallows.  Her  experience  had  all  been 
among  the  meadows  and  mountains  so  that  she 
was  simple  and  direct  and  fearless  in  her 
thoughts  and  acts.  You  never  had  to  wonder 
what  she  meant  when  she  spoke  and  when  you 
came  to  know  her  you  didn't  even  have  to  won- 
der what  she  was  dreaming  about.  And  yet 
she  was  never  the  same  because  she  was  al- 
ways growing.     But  the  thing  that  woke  me 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  13 

up  most  of  all  from  the  first  day  I  met  her  was 
the  interest  she  took  in  everyone  and  every- 
thing. A  fellow  couldn't  bore  Ruth  if  he 
tried.  She  would  have  the  time  of  her  life 
sitting  on  a  bench  in  the  park  or  walking  down 
the  street  or  just  staring  out  the  window  of  her 
aunt's  front  room.  And  that  street  looked 
like  Sunday  afternoon  all  the  week  long. 

I  began  to  do  some  figuring  when  I  was 
alone  but  there  wasn't  much  satisfaction  in  it. 
I  had  the  clothes  in  my  room,  a  good  collection 
of  pipes,  and  ten  dollars  of  my  last  week's 
salary.  A  man  couldn't  get  married  on  that 
even  to  a  girl  like  Ruth  who  wouldn't  want 
much.  I  cut  down  here  and  there  but  I  nat- 
urally wanted  to  appear  well  before  Ruth  and 
so  the  savings  went  into  new  ties  and  shoes. 
In  this  way  I  fretted  along  for  a  few  months 
until  I  screwed  my  courage  up  to  ask  for  an- 
other raise.  Those  were  prosperous  days  for 
the  United  Woollen  and  everyone  from  the 
president  to  the  office  boy  was  in  good  humor. 
I  went  to  Morse,  head  of  the  department,  and 
told  him  frankly  that  I  wished  to  get  married 
and  needed  more  money.  That  wasn't  a  busi- 
ness reason  for  an  increase  but  those  of  us  who 
had  worked  there  some  years  had  come  to  feel 


14  ONE  WAY  OUT 

like  one  of  the  family  and  it  wasn't  unusual 
for  the  company  to  raise  a  man  at  such  a  time. 
He  said  he'd  see  what  he  could  do  about  it  and 
when  I  opened  my  pay  envelope  the  next  week 
I  found  an  extra  five  in  it. 

I  went  direct  from  the  office  to  Ruth  and 
asked  her  to  marry  me.  She  didn't  hang  her 
head  nor  stammer  but  she  looked  me  straight 
in  the  eyes  a  moment  longer  than  usual  and 
answered : 

"All  right,  Billy." 

'Then  let's  go  out  this  afternoon  and  see 
about  getting  a  house,"  I  said. 

I  don't  think  a  Carleton  ever  boarded  when 
first  married.  To  me  it  wouldn't  have  seemed 
like  getting  married.  I  knew  a  suburb  where 
some  of  the  men  I  had  met  at  the  country  club 
lived  and  we  went  out  there.  It  was  a  beauti- 
ful June  day  and  everything  looked  clean  and 
fresh.  We  found  a  little  house  of  eight  rooms 
that  we  knew  we  wanted  as  soon  as  we  saw  it. 
It  was  one  of  a  group  of  ten  or  fifteen  that 
were  all  very  much  alike.  There  was  a  piazza 
on  the  front  and  a  little  bit  of  lawn  that  looked 
as  though  it  had  been  squeezed  in  afterwards. 
In  the  rear  there  was  another  strip  of  land 
where  we  thought  we  might  raise  some  garden 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  15 

stuff  if  we  put  it  in  boxes.  The  house  itself 
had  a  front  hall  out  of  which  stairs  led  to  the 
next  floor.  To  the  right  there  was  a  large 
room  separated  by  folding  doors  with  another 
good-sized  room  next  to  it  which  would  nat- 
urally be  used  as  a  dining  room.  In  the  rear 
of  this  was  the  kitchen  and  besides  the  door 
there  was  a  slide  through  which  to  pass  the 
food.  Upstairs  there  were  four  big  rooms 
Stretching  the  whole  width  of  the  house. 
Above  these  there  was  a  servant's  room.  The 
whole  house  was  prettily  finished  and  in  the 
two  rooms  down  stairs  there  were  fireplaces 
which  took  my  eye,  although  they  weren't  big- 
ger than  coal  hods.  It  was  heated  by  a  fur- 
nace and  lighted  by  electricity  and  there  were 
stained  glass  panels  either  side  of  the  front 
door. 

The  rent  was  forty  dollars  a  month  and  I 
signed  a  three  years'  lease  before  I  left.  The 
next  week  was  a  busy  one  for  us  both.  We 
bought  almost  a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
furniture  on  the  installment  plan  and  even 
then  we  didn't  seem  to  get  more  than  the  bare 
necessities.  I  hadn't  any  idea  that  house  fur- 
nishings cost  so  much.  But  if  the  bill  had 
come  to  five  times  that  I  wouldn't  have  cared. 


l6  ONE  WAY  OUT 

The  installments  didn't  amount  to  very  much 
a  week  and  I  already  saw  Morse  promoted  and 
myself  filling  his  position  at  twenty-five  hun- 
dred. I  hadn't  yet  got  over  the  feeling  I  had 
at  eighteen  that  life  was  a  big  adventure  and 
that  a  man  with  strong  legs  and  a  good  back 
couldn't  lose.  With  Ruth  at  my  side  I  bought 
like  a  king.  Though  I  never  liked  the  idea  of 
running  into  debt  this  didn't  seem  like  a  debt. 
I  had  only  to  look  into  her  dear  blue  eyes  to 
feel  myself  safe  in  buying  the  store  itself. 
Ruth  herself  sometimes  hesitated  but,  as  I  told 
her,  we  might  as  well  start  right  and  once  for 
all  as  to  go  at  it  half  heartedly. 

The  following  Saturday  we  were  married. 
My  vacation  wasn't  due  for  another  month  so 
we  decided  not  to  wait.  The  old  folks  came 
down  from  the  farm  and  we  just  called  in  a 
clergyman  and  were  married  in  the  front  par- 
lor of  the  aunt's  house.  It  was  both  very  sim- 
ple and  very  solemn.  For  us  both  the  ceremony 
meant  the  taking  of  a  sacred  oath  of  so  serious 
a  nature  as  to  forbid  much  lightheartedness. 
And  yet  I  did  wish  that  the  father  and  mother 
and  aunt  had  not  dressed  in  black  and  cried 
during  it  all.  Ruth  wore  a  white  dress  and 
looked  very  beautiful  and  didn't  seem  afraid. 


A  BORN  AND  BRED  NEW  ENGLANDER  17 

As  for  me,  my  knees  trembled  and  I  was  chalk 
white.  I  think  it  was  the  old  people  and  the 
room,  for  when  it  was  over  and  we  came  out 
into  the  sunshine  again  I  felt  all  right  except 
a  bit  light-headed.  I  remember  that  the  street 
and  the  houses  and  the  cars  seemed  like  very- 
small  matters. 


CHAPTER  II 

THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK 

When,  with  Ruth  on  my  arm,  I  walked  up 
the  steps  of  the  house  and  unlocked  the  front 
door,  I  entered  upon  a  new  life.  It  was  my 
first  taste  of  home  since  my  mother  died  and 
added  to  that  was  this  new  love  which  was 
finer  than  anything  I  had  ever  dreamed  about. 
It  seemed  hard  to  have  to  leave  every  morn- 
ing at  half  past  six  and  not  get  back  until 
after  five  at  night,  but  to  offset  this  we  used  to 
get  up  as  early  as  four  o'clock  during  the  long 
summer  days.  Many  the  time  even  in  June 
Ruth  and  I  ate  our  breakfast  by  lamp-light. 
It  gave  us  an  extra  hour  and  she  was  bred  in 
the  country  where  getting  up  in  the  morning 
is  no  great  hardship. 

We  couldn't  afford  a  servant  and  we  didn't 
want  one.  Ruth  was  a  fine  cook  and  I  cer- 
tainly did  justice  to  her  dishes  after  ten  years 
of  restaurants  and  boarding-houses.  On  rainy 
days  when  we  couldn't  get  out,  she  used  to  do 

i8 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  19 

her  cooking  early  so  that  I  might  watch  her. 
It  seemed  a  lot  more  like  her  cooking  when  I 
saw  her  pat  out  the  dough  and  put  it  in  the 
oven  instead  of  coming  home  and  finding  it  all 
done.  I  used  to  fill  up  my  pipe  and  sit  by  the 
kitchen  stove  until  I  had  just  time  to  catch  the 
train  by  sprinting. 

But  when  the  morning  was  fine  we'd  either 
take  a  long  walk  through  the  big  park  reser- 
vation which  was  near  the  house  or  we'd  fuss 
over  the  garden.  We  had  twenty-two  inches 
of  radishes,  thirty-eight  inches  of  lettuce,  four 
tomato  plants,  two  hills  of  corn,  three  hills  of 
beans  and  about  four  yards  of  early  peas.  In 
addition  to  this  Ruth  had  squeezed  a  geranium 
into  one  corner  and  a  fern  into  another  and 
planted  sweet  alyssum  around  the  whole  busi- 
ness. Everyone  out  here  planned  to  raise  his 
own  vegetables.  It  was  supposed  to  cut  down 
expenses  but  I  noticed  the  market  man  always 
did  a  good  business. 

I  had  met  two  or  three  of  the  men  at 
the  country  club  and  they  introduced  me  to  the 
others.  We  were  all  earning  about  the  same 
salaries  and  living  in  about  the  same  type  of 
house.  Still  there  were  differences  and  you 
could  tell  more  by  the  wives  than  the  husbands 


20  ONE  WAY  OUT 

those  whose  salaries  went  over  two  thousand. 
Two  or  three  of  the  men  were  in  banks,  one 
was  in  a  leather  firm,  one  was  an  agent  for  an 
insurance  company,  another  was  with  the  tele- 
graph company,  another  was  with  the  Standard 
Oil,  and  two  or  three  others  were  with  firms 
like  mine.  Most  of  them  had  been  settled  out 
here  three  or  four  years  and  had  children.  In 
a  general  way  they  looked  comfortable  and 
happy  enough  but  you  heard  a  good  deal  of 
talk  among  them  about  the  high  cost  of  living 
and  you  couldn't  help  noticing  that  those  who 
dressed  the  best  had  the  fewest  children.  One 
or  two  of  them  owned  horses  but  even  they 
felt  obliged  to  explain  that  they  saved  the  cost 
of  them  in  car  fares. 

They  all  called  and  left  their  cards  but  that 
first  year  we  didn't  see  much  of  them.  There 
wasn't  room  in  my  life  for  anyone  but  Ruth  at 
that  time.  I  didn't  see  even  the  old  office 
gang  except  during  business  hours  and  at 
lunch. 

The  rent  scaled  my  salary  down  to  one  thou- 
sand and  eighty  dollars  at  one  swoop.  Then 
we  had  to  save  out  at  least  five  dollars  a  week 
to  pay  on  the  furniture.  This  left  eight  hun- 
dred and  twenty,  or  fifteen  dollars  and  seventy- 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  2 1' 

five  cents  a  week,  to  cover  running  expenses. 
We  paid  cash  for  everything  and  though 
we  never  had  much  left  over  at  the  end 
of  the  week  and  never  anything  at  the  end 
of  the  month,  we  had  about  everything  we 
wanted.  For  one  thing  our  tastes  were  not 
extravagant  and  we  did  no  entertaining. 
Our  grocery  and  meat  bill  amounted  to  from 
five  to  seven  dollars  a  week.  Of  course  I  had 
my  lunches  in  town  but  I  got  out  of  those  for 
twenty  cents.  My  daily  car  fare  was  twenty 
cents  more  which  brought  my  total  weekly 
expenses  up  to  about  three  dollars.  This  left  a 
comfortable  margin  of  from  five  to  seven  dol- 
lars for  light,  coal,  clothes  and  amusements. 
In  the  summer  the  first  three  items  didn't 
amount  to  much  so  some  weeks  we  put  most 
of  this  into  the  furniture.  But  the  city  was 
new  to  Ruth,  especially  at  night,  so  we  were 
in  town  a  good  deal.  She  used  to  meet  me  at 
the  office  and  we'd  walk  about  the  city  and 
then  take  dinner  at  some  little  French  restau- 
rant and  then  maybe  go  to  a  concert  or  the 
theatre.  She  made  everything  new  to  me 
again.  At  the  theatre  she  used  to  perch  on 
the  edge  of  her  seat  so  breathless,  so  respon- 
sive that  I  often  saw  the  old  timers  watch  her 


22  Ox\E  WAY  OUT 

instead  of  the  show.  I  often  did  myself.  And 
sometimes  it  seemed  as  though  the  whole  com- 
pany acted  to  her  alone. 

Those  days  were  perfect.  The  only  incident 
to  mar  them  was  the  death  of  Ruth's  parents. 
They  died  suddenly  and  left  an  estate  of  six 
or  seven  hundred  dollars.  Ruth  insisted  upon 
putting  that  into  the  furniture.  But  in  our 
own  lives  every  day  was  as  fair  as  the  first. 
My  salary  came  as  regularly  as  an  annuity  and 
there  was  every  prospect  for  advancement. 
The  garden  did  well  and  Ruth  became  ac- 
quainted with  most  of  the  women  in  a  sociable 
way.  She  joined  a  sewing  circle  which  met 
twice  a  month  chiefly  I  guess  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  out  about  one  another's  husbands. 
At  any  rate  she  told  me  more  about  them  than 
I  would  have  learned  in  ten  years. 

Still,  during  the  fall  and  winter  we  kept 
pretty  much  by  ourselves,  not  deliberately  but 
because  neither  of  us  cared  particularly  about 
whist  parties  and  such  things  but  preferred  to 
spend  together  what  time  we  had.  And  then 
I  guess  Ruth  was  a  little  shy  about  her 
clothes.  She  dressed  mighty  well  to  my  eye 
but  she  made  most  of  her  things  herself  and 
didn't  care  much  about  style.     She  didn't  no- 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  23 

tice  the  difference  at  home  but  when  she  was 
out  among  others,  they  made  her  feel  it. 
However  spring  came  around  again  and  we 
forgot  all  about  those  details.  We  didn't  go 
in  town  so  much  that  summer  and  used  to 
spend  more  time  on  our  piazza.  I  saw  more 
of  the  men  in  this  way  and  found  them  a 
pleasant,  companionable  lot.  They  asked  me 
to  join  the  Neighborhood  Club  and  I  did,  more 
to  meet  them  half  way  than  because  I  wanted 
to.  There  we  played  billiards  and  discussed 
the  stock  market  and  furnaces.  All  of  them 
had  schemes  for  making  fortunes  if  only  they 
had  a  few  thousand  dollars  capital.  Now  and 
then  you'd  find  a  group  of  them  in  one  corner 
discussing  a  rumor  that  so  and  so  had  lost  his 
job.  They  spoke  of  this  as  they  would  of  a 
death.  But  none  of  those  subjects  interested 
me  especially  in  view  of  what  I  was  looking 
forward  to  in  my  own  family. 

In  the  afternoons  of  the  early  fall  the  women 
sent  over  jellies  and  such  stuff  to  Ruth  and 
dropped  in  upon  her  with  whispered  advice. 
She  used  to  repeat  it  to  me  at  night  with  a; 
gay  little  laugh  and  her  eyes  sparkling  like 
diamonds.  She  was  happier  now  than  I  had 
ever  seen  her  and  so  was  I  myself.     When  I 


24  ONE  WAY  OUT 

went  in  town  in  the  morning  I  felt  very  im- 
portant. 

I  thought  I  had  touched  the  cHmax  of  Hfe 
when  I  married  Ruth  but  when  the  boy  came 
he  lifted  me  a  notch  higher.  And  with  him 
he  brought  me  a  new  wife  in  Ruth,  without 
taking  one  whit  from  the  old.  Sweetheart, 
wife  and  mother  now,  she  revealed  to  me  new 
depths  of  womanhood. 

She  taught  me,  too,  what  real  courage  is.  I 
was  the  coward  when  the  time  came.  I  had 
taken  a  day  off  but  the  doctor  ordered  me  out 
of  the  house.  I  went  down  to  the  club  and  I 
felt  more  one  of  the  neighborhood  that  day 
than  I  ever  did  before  or  afterwards.  It  was 
Saturday  and  during  the  afternoon  a  number 
of  the  men  came  in  and  just  silently  gripped 
my  hand. 

The  women,  too,  seemed  to  take  a  new  inter- 
est in  us.  When  Ruth  was  able  to  sit  up  they 
brought  in  numberless  little  things.  But  you'd 
have  thought  it  was  their  house  and  not  mine, 
the  way  they  treated  me.  When  any  of  them 
came  I  felt  as  though  I  didn't  belong  there  and 
ought  to  tip-toe  out. 

We'd  been  saving  up  during  the  summer  for 
this  emergency  so  that  we  had  enough  to  pay 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  25 

for  the  doctor  and  the  nurse  but  that  was  only 
the  beginning  of  the  new  expenses.  In  the 
first  place  we  had  to  have  a  servant  now.  I 
secured  a  girl  who  knew  how  to  cook  after  a 
fashion,  for  four  dollars  a  week.  But  that 
wasn't  by  any  means  what  she  cost  us.  In 
spite  of  Ruth's  supervision  the  girl  wasted  as 
much  as  she  used  so  that  our  provision  bill 
was  nearly  doubled.  If  we  hadn't  succeeded 
in  paying  for  the  furniture  before  this  I  don't 
know  what  we  would  have  done.  As  it  was 
I  found  my  salary  pretty  well  strained.  I 
hadn't  any  idea  that  so  small  a  thing  as  a  baby 
could  cost  so  much.  Ruth  had  made  most  of 
his  things  but  I  know  that  some  of  his  shirts 
cost  as  much  as  mine. 

When  the  boy  was  older  Ruth  insisted  upon 
getting  along  without  a  girl  again.  I  didn't 
approve  of  this  but  I  saw  that  it  would  make 
her  happier  to  try  anyway.  How  in  the  world 
she  managed  to  do  it  I  don't  know  but  she  did. 
This  gave  her  an  excuse  for  not  going  out — 
though  it  was  an  excuse  that  made  me  half 
ashamed  of  myself — and  so  we  saved  in  an- 
other way.  Even  with  this  we  just  made  both 
ends  meet  and  that  was  all. 

The  boy  grew  like  a  weed  and  before  I  knew 


26  ONE  WAY  OUT 

it  he  was  five  years  old.  Until  he  began  to 
walk  and  talk  I  didn't  think  of  him  as  a  pos- 
sible man.  He  didn't  seem  like  anything  in 
particular.  He  was  just  soft  and  round  and 
warm.  But  when  he  began  to  wear  knicker- 
bockers he  set  me  to  thinking  hard.  He  wasn't 
going  to  remain  always  a  baby;  he  was  going 
to  grow  into  a  boy  and  then  a  young  man  and 
before  I  knew  it  he  would  be  facing  the  very 
same  problem  that  now  confronted  me.  And 
that  problem  was  how  to  get  enough  ahead  of 
the  game  to  give  him  a  fair  start  in  life.  I 
realized,  too,  that  I  wanted  him  to  do  some- 
thing better  than  I  had  done.  When  I  stopped 
to  think  of  it  I  had  accomplished  mighty  little. 
I  had  lived  and  that  was  about  all.  That  I 
had  lived  happily  was  due  to  Ruth.  But  if  I 
was  finding  difficulty  in  keeping  even  with  the 
game  now,  what  was  I  going  to  do  when  the 
youngster  would  prove  a  decidedly  more 
serious  item  of  expense? 

I  talked  this  over  with  Ruth  and  we  both 
decided  that  somehow,  in  some  way,  we  must 
save  some  money  every  year.  We  started  in 
by  reducing  our  household  expenses  still  fur- 
ther. But  it  seemed  as  though  fate  were 
against  us  for  prices  rose  just  enough  to  ab- 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  27 

sorb  all  our  little  economies.  Flour  went  up 
and  sugar  went  up,  and  though  we  had  done 
away  with  meat  almost  wholly  now,  vegetables 
went  up.  So,  too,  did  coal.  Not  only  that 
but  we  had  long  since  found  it  impossible  to 
keep  to  ourselves  as  we  had  that  first  year. 
Little  by  little  we  had  been  drawn  into  the 
social  life  of  the  neighborhood.  Not  a  month 
went  by  but  what  there  was  a  dinner  or  two  or 
a  whist  party  or  a  dance.  Personally  I  didn't 
care  about  such  things  but  as  Ruth  had  be- 
come a  matron  and  in  consequence  had  been 
thrown  more  in  contact  with  the  women,  she 
had  lost  her  shyness  and  grown  more  sociable. 
She  often  suggested  declining  an  invitation  but 
we  couldn't  decline  one  without  declining  all. 
I  saw  clearly  enough  that  I  had  no  right  to 
do  this.  She  did  more  work  than  I  and  did 
not  have  the  daily  change.  To  have  made  a 
social  exile  of  her  would  have  been  to  make 
her  little  better  than  a  slave.  But  it  cost 
money.  It  cost  a  lot  of  money.  We  had  to 
do  our  part  in  return  and  though  Ruth  accom- 
plished this  by  careful  buying  and  all  sorts  of 
clever  devices,  the  item  became  a  big  one  in 
the  year's  expenses. 

I  began  to  look  forward  with  some  anxiety 


28  ONE  WAY  OUT 

for  the  next  raise.  At  the  office  I  hunted  for 
extra  work  with  an  eye  upon  the  place  above; 
but  though  I  found  the  work  nothing  came  of 
it  but  extra  hours.  In  fact  I  began  to  think 
myself  lucky  to  hold  the  job  I  had  for  a  grad- 
ual change  of  methods  had  been  slowly  going 
on  in  the  office.  Mechanical  adding  machines 
had  cost  a  dozen  men  their  jobs;  a  card  system 
of  bookkeeping  had  made  it  possible  to  dis- 
charge another  dozen,  while  an  oft*  year  in 
woollens  sent  two  or  three  more  flying,  among 
them  the  man  who  had  found  me  the  position 
in  the  first  place.  But  he  hadn't  married  and 
he  went  out  west  somewhere.  Occasionally 
when  work  picked  up  again  a  young  man  was 
taken  on  to  fill  the  place  of  one  of  the  dis- 
charged men.  The  company  always  saved  a 
few  hundred  dollars  by  such  a  shift  for  the 
lad  never  got  the  salary  of  the  old  employee, 
and  so  far  as  anyone  could  see  the  work  went 
on  just  as  well. 

While  these  moves  were  ominous,  as  I  can 
see  now  in  looking  back,  they  didn't  disturb 
me  very  much  at  the  time.  I  filled  a  little 
niche  in  the  office  that  w^as  all  my  own.  At 
every  opportunity  I  had  familiarized  myself 
with  the  work  of  the  man  above  me  and  was 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  29 

on  very  good  terms  with  him.  I  waited  pa- 
tiently and  confidently  for  the  day  when  Morse 
should  call  me  in  and  announce  his  own  advance 
and  leave  me  to  fill  his  place.  I  might  have 
to  begin  on  two  thousand  but  it  was  a  sure 
twenty-five  hundred  eventually  to  say  nothing 
of  what  it  led  to.  The  president  of  the  com- 
pany had  begun  as  I  had  and  had  moved  up 
the  same  steps  that  now  lay  ahead  of  me. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  life  at  home  ran 
smoothly  in  spite  of  everything.  Neither  the 
wife,  the  boy  nor  I  was  sick  a  day  for  we  all 
had  sound  bodies  to  start  with.  Our  country- 
bred  ancestors  didn't  need  a  will  to  leave  us 
those.  If  at  times  we  felt  a  trifle  pinched  espe- 
cially in  the  matter  of  clothes,  it  was  wonderful 
how  rich  Ruth  contrived  to  make  us  feel.  She 
knew  how  to  take  care  of  things  and  though  I 
didn't  spend  half  what  some  of  the  men  spent 
on  their  suits,  I  went  in  town  every  morning 
looking  better  than  two-thirds  of  them.  I  was 
inspected  from  head  to  foot  before  I  started 
and  there  wasn't  a  wrinkle  or  a  spot  so  small 
that  it  could  last  twenty-four  hours.  I  shined 
my  own  shoes  and  pressed  my  own  trousers 
and  Ruth  looked  to  it  that  this  was  done  well. 
Moreover  she  could  turn  a  tie,  clean  and  press 


30  ONE  WAY  OUT 

it  so  that  it  looked  brand  new.  I  think  some 
of  the  neighbors  even  thought  I  was  extrava- 
gant in  my  dressing. 

She  did  the  same  for  herself  and  had  caught 
the  knack  of  seeming  to  dress  stylishly  without 
really  doing  so.  She  had  beautiful  hair  and 
this  in  itself  made  her  look  well  dressed.  As 
for  the  boy  he  was  a  model  for  them  all. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  boy  had  grown  into 
short  trousers  and  before  we  knew  it  he  was 
in  school.  It  made  it  lonesome  for  her  during 
the  day  when  he  began  to  trudge  off  every 
morning  at  nine  o'clock.  She  began  to  look 
forward  to  Saturdays  as  eagerly  as  the  boy 
did.  Then  the  next  thing  we  knew  he'd  start 
off  even  earlier  on  that  day  to  join  his  play- 
mates. Sunday  was  the  only  day  either  of  us 
had  him  to  ourselves. 

After  he  began  to  go  to  school,  Ruth  and  I 
seemed  to  begin  another  life.  In  a  way  we 
felt  all  by  ourselves  once  more.  I  didn't  get 
home  until  half  past  seven  now  and  Dick  was 
then  abed.  He  was  abed  too  when  I  left  in 
the  morning.  Of  course  he  was  never  off  my 
mind  and  if  he  hadn't  been  asleep  upstairs  I 
guess  I'd  have  known  a  difference.  But  at 
the  same  time  he  was,  in  a  small  way,  living 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  31 

his  own  life  now  which  left  Ruth  and  me 
to  ourselves  once  more.  She  used  to  go 
over  for  me  all  the  details  of  his  day  from 
the  time  she  took  him  up  in  the  morning 
until  she  tucked  him  away  in  bed  again 
at  night  and  then  there  would  come  a  pause. 
It  seemed  as  though  there  ought  to  be  some- 
thing more,  but  there  wasn't.  The  next  few 
months  it  seemed  almost  as  though  she  was 
w^aiting.  For  what,  I  didn't  know  and  yet  I 
too  felt  there  was  a  lapse  in  our  lives.  I  never 
loved  her  more.  There  was  never  a  time  when 
she  was  so  truly  my  wife  and  yet  in  our  com- 
bined lives  there  was  something  lacking. 
After  a  w^iile  I  began  to  notice  a  wistful  ex- 
pression in  her  eyes.  It  always  came  after 
she  had  said, 

"So  Dicky  said,  *God  bless  father  and 
mother,'  and  then  he  went  to  sleep." 

Then  one  night  it  dawned  on  me.  Hers  was 
the  same  heart  hunger  that  had  been  eating 
at  me.  Dick  was  a  boy  now  and  there  was  no 
baby  to  take  his  place.  But,  good  Lord,  as 
it  was  I  hadn't  been  able  to  save  a  dollar.  I 
knew  that  we  were  simply  holding  on  tight  and 
drifting.  The  boat  was  loaded  to  the  gun- 
wales even  now.     And  yet  that  expression  in 


32 


ONE  WAY  OUT 


her  eyes  had  a  right  to  be  answered.  But  I 
couldn't  answer  it.  I  didn't  dare  open  my 
mouth.  I  didn't  dare  speak  even  one  night 
when  she  said, 

"He's  all  we  have,  Billy — just  one." 

I  gripped  her  hand  and  sat  staring  into  the 
little  coal  hod  fireplace  which  we  didn't  light 
more  than  once  a  month  now.  Even  as  I 
watched  the  flames  I  saw  them  licking  up  pen- 
nies. 

Just  one !  And  I  too  wanted  a  houseful  like 
Dick. 

I  had  to  see  that  look  night  after  night  and 
I  had  to  go  to  town  knowing  I  was  leaving 
her  all  alone  with  the  one  away  at  school.  And 
what  a  mother  she  was!  She  ought  to  have 
had  a  baby  by  her  side  all  the  time. 

As  the  one  grew,  his  expenses  increased. 
The  only  way  to  meet  them  was  by  cutting 
down  our  own  expenses  still  more.  I  cut  out 
smoking  and  made  my  old  clothes  do  an 
extra  year.  Ruth  spent  half  her  time  in 
bargain  hunting  and  saved  still  more  by 
taking  it  out  of  herself.  Poor  little  woman, 
she  worked  harder  for  a  quarter  than  I 
did  and  I  was  working  harder  for  that 
sum    than    I    used    to    work    for    a    dollar. 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  33 

But  we  were  not  alone  in  the  struggle.  As 
we  came  to  know  more  about  the  people  in  that 
group  of  snug  little  houses  we  knew  that  the 
same  grim  fight  was  going  on  in  all  of  them. 
Some  of  them  were  not  so  lucky  as  we  and  ran 
into  debt  while  a  few  of  them  were  luckier  and 
were  helped  out  with  legacies  or  by  well-to-do 
relatives.  We  were  as  much  alike  as  peas  in 
a  pod.  We  were  living  on  the  future  and 
bluffing  out  the  present.  You'd  have  thought 
it  would  have  cast  a  gloom  over  the  neighbor- 
hood— you'd  have  thought  it  would  have  done 
away  with  some  of  the  parties  and  dances.  But 
it  didn't.  In  the  first  place  this  was,  to  most 
of  us,  just  life.  In  the  second  place  there 
didn't  seem  to  be  any  alternative.  There  was 
no  other  way  of  living.  The  conditions  seemed 
to  be  fixed;  we  had  to  eat,  we  had  to  wear  a 
certain  type  of  dress ;  and  unless  we  wished  to 
exist  as  exiles  we  had  to  meet  on  a  certain 
plane  of  social  intercourse.  The  conventions 
were  as  iron  clad  here  as  among  the  nobility 
of  England.  No  one  thought  of  violating 
them;  no  one  thought  it  was  possible.  You 
had  to  live  as  the  others  did  or  die  and  be 
done  with  it.  If  anyone  of  us  had  thought 
we  might  have  seen  the  foolishness  of  this 


34 


ONE  WAY  OUT 


but  it  was  all  so  manifest  that  no  one 
did  think.  The  only  method  of  escape  was  a 
raise  and  that  meant  moving  into  another 
sphere  which  would  cover  that. 

A  new  complication  came  wdien  the  boy  grew 
old  enough  to  have  social  functions  of  his  own. 
He  had  made  many  new  friends  and  he  wanted 
to  join  a  tennis  club,  a  dancing  class  and  con- 
tribute towards  the  support  of  the  athletic 
teams  of  the  school.  Moreover  he  was  in- 
vited to  parties  and  had  to  give  parties 
himself.  Once  again  I  tried  to  see  some  way 
out  of  this  social  business.  It  seemed  such  a 
pitiful  waste  of  ammunition  under  the  circum- 
stances. I  wanted  to  save  the  money  if  it  was 
possible  in  any  way  to  eke  it  out,  for  his  edu- 
cation. But  what  could  I  do?  The  boy  had 
to  live  as  his  friends  lived  or  give  them  up. 
He  wasn't  asked  to  do  any  more  than  the  other 
boys  of  the  neighborhood  but  he  was  rightly 
asked  to  do  as  much.  If  he  couldn't  it  would 
be  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  pride  that  he  associated 
with  them  at  all.  And  a  just  pride  in  a  boy 
is  something  you  can't  safely  tamper  with.  He 
had  to  have  the  money  and  we  managed  it 
somehow.  But  it  brought  home  the  old  grim 
fact  that  I  hadn't  as  yet  saved  a  dollar. 


THIRTY  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  35 

I  clung  more  than  ever  now  to  the  one  ray 
of  hope — the  job  ahead.  It  was  the  only  com- 
fort Ruth  and  I  had  and  whenever  I  felt  espe- 
cially downhearted  she'd  start  in  and  plan  how 
we'd  spend  it.  It  took  the  edge  off  the  imme- 
diate thought  of  danger.  In  the  meanwhile  I 
resigned  even  from  the  Neighborhood  Club  and 
let  the  boy  join  the  tennis  club.  I  noticed  at 
once  a  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  men  to- 
wards me.  But  I  was  reaching  a  point  now 
where  I  didn't  care. 

In  this  way,  then,  we  lived  until  I  was  thir- 
ty-eight and  Ruth  was  thirty,  and  the  boy  was 
eleven.  For  the  last  few  months  I  had  been 
doing  night  work  without  extra  pay  and  so 
was  practically  exiled  from  the  boy  except  on 
Sundays.  He  was  not  developing  the  way  I 
wanted.  The  local  grammar  school  was  al- 
most a  private  school  for  the  neighborhood. 
I  should  have  preferred  to  have  it  more  cos- 
mopolitan. The  boy  was  rubbing  up  against 
only  his  own  kind  and  this  was  making  him 
soft,  both  physically  and  mentally.  He  was 
also  getting  querulous  and  autocratic.  Ruth 
saw  it,  but  with  only  one.  .  .  .  Well,  on 
Sundays  I  took  the  boy  with  me  on  long  cross- 
country jaunts  and  did  a  good  deal  of  talking 


36  ONE  WAY  OUT 

to  him.  But  all  I  said  rolled  off  like  water  off  a 
duck.  He  lacked  energy  and  initiative.  He 
was  becoming  distinctly  more  middle-class  than 
either  of  us,  with  some  of  the  faults  of  the 
so-called  upper  class  thrown  in.  He  chattered 
about  Harvard,  not  as  an  opportunity,  but  as 
a  class  privilege.  I  didn't  like  it.  But  before 
I  had  time  to  worry  much  about  this  the  crash 
came  that  I  had  not  been  wise  enough  to  fore- 
see. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL 

One  Saturday  afternoon,  after  we  had  been 
paid  off,  Morse,  the  head  of  the  department, 
whose  job  I  had  been  eyeing  enviously  for  five 
years  now,  called  me  into  his  office.  For  three 
minutes  I  saw  all  my  hopes  realized;  for  three 
minutes  I  walked  dizzily  with  my  whole  life 
justified.  I  could  hardly  catch  my  breath  as 
I  followed  him.  I  didn't  realize  until  then  how 
big  a  load  I  had  been  carrying.  As  a  drown- 
ing man  is  said  to  see  visions  of  his  whole  past 
life,  I  saw  visions  of  my  whole  future.  I  saw 
Ruth's  eager  face  lifted  to  mine  as  I  told  her 
the  good  news;  I  saw  the  boy  taken  from  his 
commonplace  surroundings  and  doing  himself 
proud  in  some  big  preparatory  school  where 
he  brushed  up  against  a  variety  of  other  boys ; 
I  saw — God  pity  me  for  the  fool  I  was — other 
children  at  home  to  take  his  place.  I  can  say 
that  for  three  minutes  I  have  lived. 

Morse  seated  himself  in  the  chair  before  his 

Z7 


'i540S 


38  ONE  WAY  OUT 

desk  and,  bending  over  his  papers,  talked  with- 
out looking  at  me.  He  was  a  small  fellow.  I 
don't  suppose  a  beefy  man  ever  quite  gets  over 
a  certain  feeling  of  superiority  before  a  small 
man.  I  could  have  picked  up  Morse  in  one 
hand. 

**Carleton,"  he  began,  "I've  got  to  cut  down 
your  salary  five  hundred  dollars." 

It  came  like  a  blow  in  the  face.  I  don't 
think  I  answered. 

*'Sorry,"  he  added,  *'but  Evans  says  he  can 
double  up  on  your  work  and  offers  to  do  it  for 
two  hundred  dollars  more." 

I  repeated  that  name  Evans  over  and  over. 
He  was  the  man  under  me.  Then  I  saw  my 
mistake.  While  watching  the  man  ahead  of 
me  I  had  neglected  to  watch  the  man  behind 
me.  Evans  and  I  had  been  good  friends.  I 
liked  him.  He  was  about  twenty,  and  a  hard 
worker. 

"Well?"  said  Morse. 

I  recovered  my  wind. 

"Good  God,"  I  cried;  "I  can't  live  on  any 
less  than  I'm  getting  now!" 

"Then  you  resign?"  he  asked  quickly. 

For  a  second  I  saw  red.  I  wanted  to  take 
this  pigmy  by  the  throat.     I  wanted  to  shake 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  39 

him.  He  didn't  give  me  time  before  exclaim- 
ing: 

''Very  well,  Carleton.  I'll  give  you  an  order, 
for  two  weeks'  pay  in  advance." 

The  next  thing  I  knew  I  was  in  the  outer 
office  with  the  order  in  my  hand.  I  saw  Evans 
at  his  desk.  I  guess  I  must  have  looked  queer, 
for  at  first  he  shrank  away  from  me.  Then  he 
came  to  my  side. 

"Carleton,"  he  said,  "what's  the  matter?" 

"I  guess  you  know,"  I  answered. 

"You  aren't  fired?" 

I  bucked  up  at  this.  I  tried  to  speak  natu- 
rally. 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "I'm  fired." 

"But  that  isn't  right,  Carleton,"  he  pro- 
tested. "I  didn't  think  it  would  come  to  that. 
I  went  to  Morse  and  told  him  I  wanted  to  get 
married  and  needed  more  money.  He  asked 
me  if  I  thought  I  could  do  your  work.  I  said 
yes.  I'd  have  said  yes  if  he'd  asked  me 
if  I  could  do  the  president's  work.  But — 
come  back  and  let  me  explain  it  to  Morse." 

It  was  white  of  him,  wasn't  it?  But  I  saw 
clearly  enough  that  he  was  only  fighting  for 
his  right  to  love  as  I  was  fighting  for  mine. 
I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  been  as  gen- 


40  ONE  WAY  OUT 

croiis  as  he  was — ten  years  before.  He  had 
started  toward  the  door  when  I  called  him 
back. 

"Don't  go  in  there,"  I  warned.  **The  first 
thing  you  know  you'll  be  doing  my  work  with- 
out your  two  hundred." 

"That's  so,"  he  answered.  *'But  what  are 
you  going  to  do  now?" 

"Get  another  job,"  I  answered. 

One  of  the  great  blessings  of  my  life  is  the 
fact  that  it  has  always  been  easy  to  report 
bad  news  to  Ruth.  I  never  had  to  break  things 
gently  to  her.  She  always  took  a  blow  stand- 
ing up,  like  a  man.  So  now  I  boarded  my 
train  and  went  straight  to  the  house  and  told 
her.  She  listened  quietly  and  then  took  my 
hand,  patting  it  for  a  moment  without  saying 
anything.     Finally  she  smiled  at  me. 

"Well,  Billy,"  she  said,  "it  can't  be  helped, 
can  it?  So  good  luck  to  Evans  and  his 
bride." 

When  a  woman  is  as  brave  as  that  it  stirs 
up  all  the  fighting  blood  in  a  man.  Looking 
into  her  steady  blue  eyes  I  felt  that  I  had  ex- 
aggerated my  misfortune.  Thirty-eight  is  not 
old  and  I  was  able-bodied.  I  might  land  some- 
thing even  better  than  that  which  I  had  lost. 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL     41 

So  instead  of  a  night  of  misery  I  actually  felt 
almost  glad. 

I  started  in  town  on  Monday  in  high  hope. 
But  when  I  got  off  the  train  I  began  to  won- 
der just  where  I  was  bound.  What  sort  of  a 
job  was  I  going  to  apply  for?  What  was  my 
profession,  anyway?  I  sat  down  in  the  station 
to  think  the  problem  over. 

For  twenty  years  now  I  had  been  a  cog  in 
the  clerical  machinery  of  the  United  Woollen 
Company.  I  was  known  as  a  United  Woollen 
man.  But  just  what  else  had  this  experience 
made  of  me?  I  was  not  a  bookkeeper.  I 
knew  no  more  about  keeping  a  full  set  of  books 
than  my  boy.  I  had  handled  only  strings  of 
United  Woollen  figures;  those  meant  nothing 
outside  that  particular  office.  I  was  not  a 
stenographer,  or  an  accountant,  or  a  secretary. 
I  had  been  called  a  clerk  in  the  directory.  But 
what  did  that  mean?  What  the  devil  was  I, 
after  twenty  years  of  hard  work? 

The  question  started  the  sweat  to  my  fore- 
head. But  I  pulled  myself  together  again. 
At  least  I  was  an  able-bodied  man.  I  was 
willing  to  work,  had  a  record  of  honesty  and 
faithfulness,  and  was  intelligent  as  men  go.  I 
didn't  care  what  I  did,  so  long  as  it  gave  me 


42  ONE  WAY  OUT 

a  living  wage.  Surely,  then,  there  must  be 
some  place  for  me  in  this  alert,  hustling  city. 

I  bought  a  paper  and  turned  to  "Help 
Wanted."  I  felt  encouraged  at  sight  of  the 
long  column.  I  read  it  through  carefully. 
Half  of  the  positions  demanded  technical  train- 
ing; a  fourth  of  them  demanded  special  experi- 
ence ;  the  rest  asked  for  young  men.  I  couldn't 
answer  the  requirements  of  one  of  them. 
Again  and  again  the  question  was  forced  in 
upon  me — what  the  devil  was  I? 

I  didn't  know  which  way  to  turn.  I  had  no 
relatives  to  help  me — from  the  days  of  my 
great-grandfather  no  Carleton  had  ever  quit 
the  game  more  than  even.  My  business  asso- 
ciates were  as  badly  off  as  I  was  and  so  were 
my  neighbors. 

My  relations  with  the  latter  were  peculiar, 
now  that  I  came  to  think  of  it.  In  these  last 
dozen  years  I  had  come  to  know  the  details 
of  their  lives  as  intimately  as  my  own.  In 
a  way  we  had  been  like  one  big  family. 
Wq  knew  each  other  as  Frank,  and  Joe,  and 
Bill,  and  Josh,  and  were  familiar  with  one  an- 
other's physical  ailments  when  any  of  us  had 
any.  If  any  of  the  children  had  whooping 
cough  or  the  measles  every  man  and  woman  in 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  43 

the  neighborhood  watched  at  the  bedside,  in 
a  sense,  until  the  youngster  was  well  again. 
We  knew  to  a  dollar  what  each  man  was  earn- 
ing and  what  each  was  spending.  We  bor- 
rowed one  another's  garden  tools  and  the 
women  borrowed  from  each  other's  kitchens. 
,On  the  surface  we  were  just  about  as  intimate 
as  it's  possible  for  a  community  to  be.  And 
yet  what  did  it  amount  to  ? 

There  wasn't  a  man-son  of  them  to  whom  I 
would  have  dared  go  and  confess  the  fact  I'd 
lost  my  job.  They'd  know  it  soon  enough,  be 
sure  of  that;  but  it  mustn't  come  from  me. 
There  wasn't  one  of  them  to  whom  I  felt  free 
to  go  and  ask  their  help  to  interest  their  own 
firms  to  secure  another  position  for  me.  Their 
respect  for  me  depended  upon  my  ability  to 
maintain  my  social  position.  They  were  like 
steamer  friends.  On  the  voyage  they  clung  to 
one  another  closer  than  bark  to  a  tree,  but 
once  the  gang  plank  was  lowered  the  intimacy 
vanished.  If  I  wished  to  keep  them  as  friends 
I  must  stick  to  the  boat. 

I  knew  they  couldn't  do  anything  if  they 
had  wanted  to,  but  at  the  same  time  I  felt 
there  was  something  wrong  in  a  situation  that 
would  not  allow  me  to  ask  even  for  a  letter 


44  ONE  WAY  OUT 

of  introduction  without  feeling  like  a  beggar. 
1  felt  there  was  something  wrong  when  they 
made  me  feel  not  like  a  brother  in  hard  luck 
but  like  a  criminal.  I  began  to  wonder  what 
of  sterling  worth  I  had  got  out  of  this  life  dur- 
ing the  past  decade. 

However  that  was  an  incidental  matter. 
The  only  time  I  did  such  thinking  as  this  was 
towards  the  early  morning  after  I  had  lain 
awake  all  night  and  exhausted  all  other  re- 
sources. I  tackled  the  problem  in  the  only 
way  I  could  think  of  and  that  was  to  visit  the 
houses  with  whom  I  had  learned  the  United 
Woollen  did  business.  I  remembered  the 
names  of  about  a  dozen  of  them  and  made  the 
rounds  of  these  for  a  starter.  It  seemed  like 
a  poor  chance  and  I  myself  did  not  know  ex- 
actly what  they  could  do  with  me  but  it  would 
keep  me  busy  for  a  while. 

With  waits  and  delays  this  took  me  two 
weeks.  Without  letters  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible to  reach  the  managers  but  I  hung  on  in 
every  case  until  I  succeeded.  Here  again  I 
didn't  feel  like  an  honest  man  offering  to  do 
a  fair  return  of  work  for  pay,  so  much  as  I 
did  a  beggar.  This  may  have  been  my  fault; 
but  after  you've  sat  around  in  offices  and  cor- 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  45 

ridors  and  been  scowled  at  as  an  intruder  for 
three  or  four  hours  and  then  been  greeted 
with  a  surly  "What  do  you  want?"  you  can't 
help  having  a  grouch.  There  wasn't  a  man 
who  treated  my  offer  as  a  business  proposi- 
tion. 

At  the  end  of  that  time  two  questions  were 
burned  into  my  brain:  "What  can  you  do?" 
and  "How  old  are  you?"  The  latter  question 
came  as  a  revelation.  It  seems  that  from  a 
business  point  of  view  I  was  considered  an 
old  man.  My  good  strong  body  counted  for 
nothing;  my  willingness  to  undertake  any  task 
counted  for  nothing.  I  was  too  old.  No  one 
wanted  to  bother  with  a  beginner  over 
eighteen  or  twenty.  The  market  demanded 
youth — youth  with  the  years  ahead  that  I  had 
already  sold.  Wherever  I  stumbled  by  chance 
upon  a  vacant  position  I  found  waiting  there 
half  a  dozen  stalwart  youngsters.  They  looked 
as  I  had  looked  when  I  joined  the  United 
Woollen  Company.  I  offered  to  do  the  same 
work  at  the  same  wages  as  the  youngsters,  but 
the  managers  didn't  want  me.  They  didn't 
want  a  man  around  with  wrinkles  in  his  face. 
Moreover,  they  were  looking  to  the  future. 
They  didn't  intend  to  adjust  a  man  into  theii: 


46  ONE  WAY  OUT 

machinery  only  to  have  him  die  in  a  dozen 
years.  I  wasn't  a  good  risk.  Moreover,  I 
wouldn't  be  so  easily  trained,  and  with  a  wider 
experience  might  prove  more  bothersome.  At 
thirty-eight  I  was  too  old  to  make  a  beginning. 
The  verdict  was  unanimous.  And  yet  I  had  a 
physique  like  an  ox  and  there  wasn't  a  gray 
hair  in  my  head.  I  came  out  of  the  last  of 
those  offices  with  my  fists  clenched. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  had  used  up  my  advance 
salary  and  was,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life, 
running  into  debt.  Having  always  paid  my 
bills  weekly  I  had  no  credit  whatever.  Even 
at  the  end  of  the  third  week  I  knew  that  the 
grocery  man  and  butcher  were  beginning 
to  fidget.  The  neighbors  had  by  this  time 
learned  of  my  plight  and  were  gossiping.  And 
yet  in  the  midst  of  all  this  I  had  some  of  the 
finest  hours  with  my  wife  I  had  ever  known. 

She  sent  me  away  every  morning  with  fresh 
hope  and  greeted  me  at  night  with  a  cheerful- 
ness that  was  like  wine.  And  she  did  this 
without  any  show  of  false  optimism.  She  was 
not  blind  to  the  seriousness  of  our  present  posi- 
tion, but  she  exhibited  a  confidence  in  me  that 
did  not  admit  of  doubt  or  fear.  There  was 
something  almost  awesomely  beautiful  about 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  47 

standing  by  her  side  and  facing  the  approach- 
ing storm.  She  used  to  place  her  small  hands 
upon  my  back  and  exclaim : 

"Why,  Billy,  there's  work  for  shoulders  like 
those." 

It  made  me  feel  like  a  giant. 

So  another  month  passed.  I  subscribed  to 
an  employment  bureau,  but  the  only  offer  I 
received  was  to  act  as  a  sort  of  bouncer  in  a 
barroom.  I  suppose  my  height  and  weight 
and  reputation  for  sobriety  recommended  me 
there.  There  was  five  dollars  a  week  in  it, 
and  as  far  as  I  alone  was  concerned  I  would 
have  taken  it.  That  sum  would  at  least  buy 
bread,  and  though  it  may  sound  incredible  the 
problem  of  getting  enough  to  eat  was  fast  be- 
coming acute.  The  provision  men  became 
daily  more  suspicious.  We  cut  down  on  every- 
thing, but  I  knew  it  was  only  a  question  of  time 
when  they  would  refuse  to  extend  our  credit 
for  the  little  we  had  to  have.  And  all  around 
me  my  neighbors  went  their  cheerful  ways  and 
waited  for  me  to  work  it  out.  But  whenever  I 
thought  of  the  barroom  job  and  the  money  it 
would  bring  I  could  see  them  shake  their  heads. 

It  was  hell.     It  was  the  deepest  of  all  deep 
hells — the  middle-class  hell.     There  was  noth- 


48  ONE  WAY  OUT 

inc^  theatrical  about  it — no  fireworks  or  red 
lights.  It  was  plain,  dull,  sodden.  Here  was 
my  position:  work  in  my  own  class  I  couldn't 
get;  work  as  a  young  man  I  was  too  old  to 
get;  work  as  just  plain  physical  labor  these 
same  middle-class  neighbors  refused  to  allow 
me  to  undertake.  I  couldn't  black  my  neigh- 
bors' boots  without  social  ostracism,  though 
Pasquale,  w^ho  kept  the  stand  in  the  United 
Woollen  building,  once  confided  to  me  that  he 
cleared  some  twenty-five  dollars  a  week.  I 
couldn't  mow  my  neighbors'  front  lawns  or  de- 
liver milk  at  their  doors,  though  there  was 
food  in  it.  That  was  honest  work — clean 
work;  but  if  I  attempted  it  would  they  play 
golf  with  me?  Personally  I  didn't  care.  I 
would  have  taken  a  job  that  day.  But  there 
were  the  wife  and  boy.  They  were  held  in 
ransom.  It's  all  very  well  to  talk  about  scorn- 
ing the  conventions,  to  philosophize  about  the 
dignity  of  honest  work,  to  quote  "a  man's  a 
man  for  a'  that";  but  associates  of  their  own 
kind  mean  more  to  a  woman  and  a  growing 
boy  than  they  do  to  a  man.  At  least  I  thought 
so  at  that  time.  When  I  saw  my  wife  sur- 
rounded by  well-bred,  well-dressed  women, 
they  seemed  to  me  an  essential  part  of  her  life. 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  49 

What  else  did  living  mean  for  her  ?  When  my 
boy  brought  home  with  him  other  boys  of  his 
age  and  kind — though  to  me  they  did  not  rep- 
resent the  highest  type — I  felt  under  obliga- 
tions to  retain  those  friends  for  him.  I  had 
begot  him  into  this  set.  It  seemed  barbarous 
to  do  anything  that  would  allow  them  to  point 
the  finger  at  him. 

I  felt  a  yearning  for  some  primeval  employ- 
ment. I  hungered  to  join  the  army  or  go  to 
sea.  But  here  again  were  the  wife  and  boy. 
I  felt  like  going  into  the  Northwest  and  pre- 
empting a  homestead.  That  was  a  saner  idea, 
but  it  took  capital  and  I  didn't  have  enough. 
I  was  tied  hand  and  foot.  It  was  like  one  of 
those  nightmares  where  in  the  face  of  danger 
you  are  suddenly  struck  dumb  and  immovable. 

I  was  beginning  to  look  wild-eyed.  Ruth 
and  I  were  living  on  bread,  without  butter, 
and  canned  soup.  I  sneaked  in  town  with  a 
few  books  and  sold  them  for  enough  to  keep 
the  boy  supplied  with  meat.  My  shoes  were 
worn  out  at  the  bottom  and  my  clothes  were 
getting  decidedly  seedy.  The  men  with  whom 
I  was  in  the  habit  of  riding  to  town  in  the 
morning  gave  me  as  wide  a  berth  as  though 
I  had  the  leprosy.     I  guess  they  were  afraid 


50  ONE  WAY  OUT 

my  hard  luck  was  catching.  God  pity  them, 
many  of  them  were  dangerously  near  the  rim 
of  this  same  hell  themselves. 

One  morning  my  wife  came  to  me  reluc- 
tantly, but  with  her  usual  courage,  and  said: 

"Billy,  the  grocery  man  didn't  bring  our  or- 
der last  night."  It  was  like  a  sword-thrust. 
It  made  me  desperate.  But  the  worst  of  the 
middle-class  hell  is  that  there  is  nothing  to  fight 
back  at.  There  you  are.  I  couldn't  say  any- 
thing. There  was  no  answer.  My  eyes  must 
have  looked  queer,  for  Ruth  came  nearer  and 
whispered: 

"Don't  go  in  town  to-day,  Billy." 

I  had  on  my  hat  and  had  gathered  up  two 
or  three  more  volumes  in  my  green  bag.  I 
looked  at  the  trim  little  house  that  had  been 
my  home  for  so  long.  The  rent  would  be  due 
next  month.  I  looked  at  the  other  trim  little 
houses  around  me.  Was  it  actually  possible 
that  a  man  could  starve  in  such  a  community? 
It  seemed  like  a  satanic  joke.  Why,  every 
year  this  country  was  absorbing  immigrants 
by  the  thousand.  They  did  not  go  hungry. 
They  waxed  fat  and  prosperous.  There  was 
Pasquale,  the  bootblack,  who  was  earning 
nearly  as  much  as  I  ever  did. 


THE  MIDDLE  CLASS  HELL  51 

We  were  standing  on  the  porch.  I  took 
Ruth  in  my  arms  and  kissed  her.  She  drew 
back  with  a  modest  protest  that  the  neighbors 
might  see.  The  word  neighbors  goaded  me. 
I  shook  my  fist  at  their  trim  Httle  houses  and 
voiced  a  passion  that  had  slowly  been  gather- 
ing strength. 

"Damn  the  neighbors!"  I  cried 

Ruth  was  startled.     I  don't  often  swear. 

"Have  they  been  talking  about  you?"  she 
asked  suddenly,  her  mouth  hardening. 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  care.  But  they 
hold  you  in  ransom  like  bloody  Moroccan 
pirates." 

"How  do  they,  Billy?" 

"They  won't  let  me  work  without  taking  it 
out  of  you  and  the  boy." 

Her  head  dropped  for  a  second  at  mention 
of  the  boy,  but  it  was  soon  lifted. 

"Let's  get  away  from  them,"  she  gasped. 
"Let's  go  where  there  are  no  neighbors." 

"Would  you?"  I  asked. 

"I'd  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  with  you, 
Billy,"  she  answered  quietly. 

How  plucky  she  was!  I  couldn't  help  but 
smile  as  I  answered,  more  to  myself: 

"We  haven't  even  the  carfare  to  go  to  the 


52  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ends  of  the  earth,  Ruth.  It  will  take  all  we 
have  to  pay  our  bills." 

"All  we  have?"  she  asked. 

No,  not  that.  They  could  get  only  a  little 
of  what  she  and  I  had.  They  could  take  our 
belongings,  that's  all.  And  they  hadn't  got 
those  yet. 

But  I  had  begun  to  hate  those  neighbors 
with  a  fierce,  unreasoning  hatred.  In  silence 
they  dictated,  without  assisting.  For  a  dozen 
years  I  had  lived  with  them,  played  with  them, 
been  an  integral  part  of  their  lives,  and  now 
they  were  worse  than  useless  to  me.  There 
wasn't  one  of  them  big  enough  to  receive  me 
into  his  home  for  myself  alone,  apart  from  the 
work  I  did.  There  wasn't  a  true  brother 
among  them. 

Our  lives  turn  upon  little  things.  They 
turn  swiftly.  Within  fifteen  minutes  I  had 
solved  my  problem  in  a  fashion  as  unexpected 
as  it  was  radical. 


CHAPTER  IV 

WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA 

Going  down  the  path  to  town  bitterly  and 
blindly,  I  met  Murphy.  He  was  a  man  with 
not  a  gray  hair  in  his  head  who  was  a 
sort  of  man-of-all-work  for  the  neighborhood. 
He  took  care  of  my  furnace  and  fussed  about 
the  grounds  when  I  was  tied  up  at  the  office 
with  night  work.  He  stopped  me  with  rather 
a  shamefaced  air. 

"Beg  pardon,  sor,"  he  began,  "but  I've  got 
a  bill  comin'  due  on  the  new  house — " 

I  remembered  that  I  owed  him  some  fifteen 
dollars.  I  had  in  my  pocket  just  ten  cents  over 
my  carfare.  But  what  arrested  my  attention 
was  the  mention  of  a  new  house. 

"You  mean  to  tell  me  that  you're  putting  up 
a  house?" 

"The  bit  of  a  rint,  sor,  in Street." 

The  contrast  was  dramatic.  The  man  who 
emptied  my  ashes  was  erecting  tenements  and 
I  was  looking  for  work  that  would  bring  me 

53 


54  ONE  WAY  OUT 

in  food.  ]\Iy  people  had  lived  in  this  country 
some  two  hundred  years  or  more,  and  Murphy 
had  probably  not  been  here  over  thirty.  There 
was  something  wrong  about  this,  but  I  seemed 
to  be  getting  hold  of  an  idea. 

"How  old  are  you,  Murphy?"  I  asked. 

*'Goin'  on  sixty,  sor." 

*'You  came  to  America  broke?" 

**Dead  broke,  sor." 

"You  have  a  wife  and  children  ?" 

"A  woman  and  six  childer." 

Six !     Think  of  it !     And  I  had  one. 

^'Children  in  school?" 

I  asked  it  almost  in  hope  that  here  at  least 
I  would  hold  the  advantage. 

*'Two  of  them  in  college,  sor." 

He  spoke  it  proudly.  Well  he  might.  But 
to  me  it  was  confusing. 

"And  you  have  enough  left  over  to  put  up  a 
house?"  I  stammered. 

"It's  better  than  the  bank,"  Murphy  said 
apologetically. 

"And  you  aren't  an  old  man  yet,"  I  mur- 
mured. 

"Old,  sor?" 

"Why  you're  young  and  strong  and  inde- 
pendent.    Murphy.     You're     "     But     I 


WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA         55 

guess  I  talked  a  bit  wild.  I  don't  know  what 
I  said.  I  was  breathless — lightheaded.  I 
wanted  to  get  back  to  Ruth. 

"Pat,"  I  said,  seizing  his  hand — "Pat,  you 
shall  have  the  money  within  a  week.  Fm  go- 
ing to  sell  out  and  emigrate." 

"Emigrate?"  he  gasped.     "Where  to?" 

I  laughed.  The  solution  now  seemed  so 
easy. 

'  "Why,  to  America,  Pat.  To  America  where 
you  came  thirty  years  ago."  I  left  him  staring 
at  me.  I  hurried  into  the  house  with  my  heart 
in  my  throat. 

I  found  Ruth  in  the  sitting-room  with  her 
chin  in  her  hands  and  her  white  forehead  knot- 
ted in  a  frown.  She  didn't  hear  me  come  in, 
but  when  I  touched  her  arm  she  jumped  up, 
ashamed  to  think  I  had  caught  her  looking 
even  puzzled.  But  at  sight  of  my  face  her 
expression  changed  in  a  flash. 

"Oh,  Billy,"  she  cried,  "it's  good  news?" 

"It's  a  way  out — if  you  approve,"  I  an- 
swered. 

"I  do,  Billy,"  she  answered,  without  waiting 
to  hear. 

"Then  listen,"  I  said.  "If  we  were  living 
in  England  or  Ireland  or  France  or  Germany 


56  ONE  WAY  OUT 

and  found  life  as  hard  as  this  and  some  one 
left  us  five  hundred  dollars  what  would  you 
advise  doing?" 

"Why,  we'd  emigrate,  Billy,"  she  said  in- 
stantly. 

"Exactly.     Where  to?" 

"To  America." 

"Right,"  I  cried.  "And  we'd  be  one  out  of 
a  thousand  if  we  didn't  make  good,  wouldn't 
we?" 

"Why,  every  one  succeeds  who  comes  here 
from  somewhere  else,"  she  exclaimed. 

"And  why  do  they?"  I  demanded,  getting 
excited  with  my  idea.  "Why  do  they?  There 
are  a  dozen  reasons.  One  is  because  they 
come  as  pioneers — with  all  the  enthusiasm  and 
eagerness  of  adventurers.  Life  is  fresh  and 
romantic  to  them  over  here.  Hardships  only 
add  zest  to  the  game.  Another  reason  is  that 
it  is  all  a  fine  big  gamble  to  them.  They  have 
everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose.  It's 
the  same  spirit  that  drives  young  New  Eng- 
landers  out  west  to  try  their  luck,  to  preempt 
homesteads  in  the  Northwest,  to  till  the  prai- 
ries. Another  reason  is  that  they  come  over 
here  free — unbound  by  conventions.  They 
can  work  as  they  please,  live  as  they  please. 


,WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA        57 

They  haven't  any  caste  to  hamper  them.  An- 
other reason  is  that,  being  on  the  same  great 
adventure,  they  are  all  brothers.  They  pull 
together.  Still  another  reason  is  that  as  emi- 
grants the  whole  United  States  stands  ready 
to  help  them  with  schools  and  playgrounds  and 
hospitals  and  parks." 

I  paused  for  breath.     She  cut  in  excitedly: 

"Then  we're  going  out  west?" 

"No;  we  haven't  the  capital  for  that.  By 
selling  all  our  things  we  can  pay  our  debts  and 
have  a  few  dollars  over,  but  that  wouldn't  take 
us  to  Chicago.  I'm  not  going  ten  miles  from 
home." 

"Where  then,  Billy?" 

"You've  seen  the  big  ships  come  in  along 
the  water-front?  They  are  bringing  over 
hundreds  of  emigrants  every  year  and  landing 
them  right  on  those  docks.  These  people  have 
had  to  cross  the  ocean  to  reach  that  point,  but 
our  ancestors  made  the  voyage  for  you  and  me 
two  hundred  years  ago.  We're  within  ten 
miles  of  the  wharf  now." 

She  couldn't  make  out  what  I  meant. 

'*Why,  wife  o'  mine,"  I  ran  on,  "all  we  need 
to  do  is  to  pack  up,  go  down  to  the  dock  and 
start  from  there.     We  must  join  the  emigrants 


58  ONE  WAY  OUT 

and  follow  them  into  the  city.  These  are  the 
only  people  who  are  finding  America  to-day. 
We  must  take  up  life  among  them;  work  as 
they  work;  live  as  they  live.  Why,  I  feel  my 
back  muscles  straining  even  now;  I  feel  the 
tingle  of  coming  down  the  gangplank  with  our 
fortunes  yet  to  make  in  this  land  of  opportu- 
nity. Pasquale  has  done  it ;  Murphy  has  done 
it.     Don't  you  think  I  can  do  it  ?" 

She  looked  up  at  me.  I  had  never  seen  her 
face  more  beautiful.  It  was  flushed  and  eager. 
She  clutched  my  arm.     Then  she  whispered : 

''My  man — my  wonderful,  good  man!'* 

The  primitive  appellation  was  in  itself  like 
a  whiff  of  salt  air.  It  bore  me  back  to  the  days 
when  a  husband's  chief  function  was  just  that 
— being  a  man  to  his  own  good  woman.  We 
looked  for  a  moment  into  each  other's  eyes. 
Then  the  same  question  was  born  to  both  of 
us  in  a  moment. 

''What  of  the  boy?" 

It  was  a  more  serious  question  to  her,  I 
think,  than  it  was  to  me.  I  knew  that  the 
sons  of  other  fathers  and  mothers  had  wrestled 
with  that  life  and  come  out  strong.  There 
were  Murphy'§  boys,  for  instance.  Of  course 
the  life  would  be  new  to  my  boy,  but  the  keen 


WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA        59 

competition  ought  to  drive  him  to  his  best. 
His  present  Hfe  was  not  doing  that.  As  for 
the  coarser  details  from  which  he  had  been  so 
sheltered — well,  a  man  has  to  learn  sooner  or 
later,  and  I  wasn't  sure  but  that  it  was  better 
for  him  to  learn  at  an  age  when  such  things 
would  offer  no  real  temptations.  With  Ruth 
back  of  him  I  didn't  worry  much  about  that. 
Besides,  the  boy  had  let  drop  a  phrase  or  two 
that  made  me  suspect  that  even  among  his  pres- 
ent associates  that  same  ground  was  being  ex- 
plored. 

"Ruth,"  I  said,  "I'm  not  worrying  about 
Dick." 

"He  has  been  kept  so  fresh,"  she  murmured. 

"It  isn't  the  fresh  things  that  keep  longest," 
I  said. 

"That's  true,  Billy,"  she  answered. 

Then  she  thought  a  moment,  and  as  though 
with  new  inspiration  answered  me  using  again 
that  same  tender,  primitive  expression: 

"I  don't  fear  for  my  man-child." 

When  the  boy  came  home  from  school  that 
night  I  had  a  long  talk  with  him.  I  told  him 
frankly  how  I  had  been  forced  out  of  my  posi- 
tion, how  I  had  tried  for  another,  how  at 
length  I  had  resolved  to  go  pioneering  just  as 


6o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

his  great-grandfather  had  done  among  the  In- 
dians. As  I  thought,  the  naked  adventure  of 
it  appealed  to  him.  That  was  all  I  wished;  it 
was  enough  to  work  on. 

The  next  day  I  brought  out  a  second-hand 
furniture  dealer  and  made  as  good  a  bargain 
as  I  could  with  him  for  the  contents  of  the 
house.  We  saved  nothing  but  the  sheer  es- 
sentials for  light  housekeeping.  These  con- 
sisted of  most  of  the  cooking  utensils,  a  half 
dozen  plates,  cups  and  saucers  and  about  a 
dozen  other  pieces  for  the  table,  four  table- 
cloths, all  the  bed  linen,  all  our  clothes,  in- 
cluding some  old  clothes  we  had  been  upon  the 
point  of  throwing  away,  a  few  personal  gim- 
cracks,  and  for  furniture  the  following  articles : 
the  folding  wooden  kitchen  table,  a  half  dozen 
chairs,  the  cot  bed  in  the  boy's  room,  the  iron 
bed  in  our  room,  the  long  mirror  I  gave  Ruth 
on  her  birthday,  and  a  sort  of  china  closet  that 
stood  in  the  dining-room.  To  this  we  added 
bowls,  pitchers,  and  lamps.  All  the  rest,  which 
included  a  full  dining-room  set,  a  full  dinner 
set  of  china,  the  furnishings  of  the  front  room, 
including  books  and  book  case,  chairs,  rugs, 
pictures  and  two  or  three  good  chairs,  a  full 
bed-room  set  in  our  room  and  a  cheaper  one 


WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA        6l 

in  the  boy's  room,  piazza  furnishings,  garden 
tools,  and  forty  odds  and  ends  all  of  which  had 
cost  me  first  and  last  something  like  two  thou- 
sand dollars,  I  told  the  dealer  to  lump  together. 
He  looked  it  over  and  bid  six  hundred  dol- 
lars. I  saw  Ruth  swallow  hard,  for  she  had 
taken  good  care  of  everything  so  that  to  us  it 
was  worth  as  much  to-day  as  we  had  paid 
for  it.  But  I  accepted  the  offer  without  dick- 
ering, for  it  was  large  enough  to  serve  my 
ends.  It  would  pay  off  all  our  debts  and  leave 
us  a  hundred  dollars  to  the  good.  It  was  the 
first  time  since  I  married  that  I  had  been  that 
much  ahead. 

That  afternoon  I  saw  Murphy  and  hired  of 
him  the  top  tenement  of  his  new  house.  It 
was  in  the  Italian  quarter  of  the  city  and  my 
flat  consisted  of  four  rooms.  The  rent  was 
three  dollars  a  week.  Murphy  looked  sur- 
prised enough  at  the  change  in  my  affairs  and 
I  made  him  promise  not  to  gossip  to  the  neigh- 
bors about  where  I'd  gone. 

"Faith,  sor,"  he  said,  "and  they  wouldn't 
believe  it  if  I  told  them." 

This  wasn't  all  I  accomplished  that  day.  I 
bought  a  pair  of  overalls  and  presented  myself 
at  the  office  of  a  contractor's  agent.     I  didn't 


62  ONE  WAY  OUT 

have  any  trouble  in  getting  in  there  and  I 
didn't  feel  hke  a  beggar  as  I  took  my  place  in 
line  with  about  a  dozen  foreigners.  I  looked 
them  over  with  a  certain  amount  of  self-con- 
fidence. Most  of  them  were  undersized  men 
with  sagging  shoulders  and  primitive  faces. 
With  their  big  eyes  they  made  me  think 
of  shaggy  Shetland  ponies.  Lined  up  man  for 
man  with  my  late  associates  they  certainly 
looked  like  an  inferior  lot.  I  studied  them 
with  curiosity;  there  must  be  more  in  them 
than  showed  on  the  surface  to  bring  them  over, 
here — there  must  be  something  that  wasn't  in 
the  rest  of  us  for  them  to  make  good  the  way 
they  did.  In  the  next  six  months  I  meant  to 
find  out  what  that  was.  In  the  meantime  just 
sitting  there  among  them  I  felt  as  though  I 
had  more  elbow  room  than  I  had  had  since  I 
was  eighteen.  Before  me  as  before  them  a 
continent  stretched  its  great  length  and 
breadth.  They  laughed  and  joked  among 
themselves  and  stared  about  at  everything 
with  eager,  curious  eyes.  They  were  ready  for 
anything,  and  everything  was  ready  for  them 
— the  ditch,  the  mines,  the  railroads,  the  wheat 
fields.  Wherever  things  were  growing  and 
needed  men  to  help  them  grow,  they  would 


WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA        63 

play  their  part.  They  say  there's  plenty  of 
room  at  the  top,  but  there's  plenty  of  room  at 
the  bottom,  too.  It's  in  the  middle  that  men 
get  pinched. 

I  worked  my  way  up  to  the  window  where 
a  sallow,  pale-faced  clerk  sat  in  front  of  a  big 
book.  He  gave  me  a  start,  he  was  such  a 
contrast  to  the  others.  In  my  new  enthusiasm 
I  wanted  to  ask  him  why  he  didn't  come  out 
and  get  in  line  the  other  side  of  the  window. 
He  yawned  as  he  wrote  down  my  name.  I 
didn't  have  to  answer  more  than  half  a  dozen 
questions  before  he  told  me  to  report  for 
work  Monday  at  such  and  such  a  place.  I 
asked  him  what  the  work  was  and  he  looked 
up. 

"Subway,"  he  answered. 

I  asked  him  how  much  the  pay  was.  He 
looked  me  over  at  this.  I  don't  know  what 
he  thought  I  was. 

"Dollar  and  a  half — nine  hours." 

"All  right,"  I  answered. 

He  gave  me  a  slip  of  paper  and  I  hurried 
out.  It  hadn't  taken  ten  minutes.  And  a  dol- 
lar and  a  half  a  day  was  nine  dollars  a  week! 
It  was  almost  twice  as  much  as  I  had  started 
on  with  the  United;  it  was  over  a  third  of 


64  ONE  WAY  OUT 

what  I  had  been  getting  after  my  first  ten 
years  of  hard  work  with  them.  It  seemed  too 
good  to  be  true.  Taking  out  the  rent,  this  left 
me  six  dollars  for  food.  That  was  as  much  as 
it  had  cost  Ruth  and  me  the  first  year  we  were 
married.  There  was  no  need  of  going  hungry 
on  that. 

I  came  back  home  jubilant.  Ruth  at  first 
,took  the  prospect  of  my  digging  in  a  ditch  a 
bit  hard,  but  that  was  only  because  she  con- 
trasted it  with  my  former  genteel  employment. 

"Why,  girl,"  I  explained,  "it's  no  more  than 
I  would  have  to  do  if  we  took  a  homestead  out 
west.  I'd  as  soon  dig  in  Massachusetts  as 
Montana." 

She  felt  of  my  arm.  It's  a  big  arm.  Then 
she  smiled.  It  was  the  last  time  she  mentioned 
the  subject. 

We  didn't  say  anything  to  the  neighbors 
until  the  furniture  began  to  go  out.  Then 
the  women  flocked  in  and  Ruth  was  hard 
pressed  to  keep  our  secret.  I  sat  upstairs  and 
chuckled  as  I  heard  her  replies.  She  says 
it's  the  only  time  I  ever  failed  to  stand  by  her, 
but  it  didn't  seem  to  me  like  anything  but  a 
joke. 

"We  shall  want  to  keep  track  of  you,"  said 


WE  EMIGRATE  TO  AMERICA         65 

little  Mrs.  Grover.     "Where  shall  we  address 
you?" 

''Oh,  I  can't  tell,"  answered  Ruth,  truthfully 
enough. 

"Are  you  going  far?" 

"Yes.     Oh — a  long,  long  way." 

That  was  true  enough  too.  We  couldn't 
have  gone  farther  out  of  their  lives  if  we'd 
sailed  for  Australia. 

And  so  they  kept  it  up.  That  night  we  made 
a  round  of  the  houses  and  everyone  was  very 
much  surprised  and  very  much  grieved  and 
very  curious.  To  all  their  inquiries,  I  made 
the  same  reply;  that  I  was  going  to  emigrate. 
Some  of  them  looked  wistful. 

"Jove,"  said  Brown,  who  was  with  the  in- 
surance company,  "but  I  wish  I  had  the  nerve 
to  do  that.     I  suppose  you're  going  west?" 

"We're  going  west  first,"  I  answered. 

The  road  to  the  station  was  almost  due  west. 

"They  say  there  are  great  chances  out  in  that 
country,"  he  said.  "It  isn't  so  overcrowded 
as  here.'* 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  I  answered,  "but 
there  are  chances  enough." 

Some  of  the  women  cried  and  all  the  men 
shook  hands   cordially   and   wished  us  good 


66  ONE  WAY  OUT 

luck.  But  it  didn't  mean  much  to  me.  The 
time  I  needed  their  handshakes  was  gone.  I 
learned  later  that  as  a  result  of  our  secrecy  I 
was  variously  credited  with  having  lost  my 
reason  with  my  job;  with  having  inherited  a 
fortune,  with  having  gambled  in  the  market, 
with,  thrown  in  for  good  measure,  a  darker 
hint  about  having  misappropriated  funds  of 
the  United  Woollen.  But  somehow  their  nas- 
tiest gossip  did  not  disturb  me.  It  had  no 
power  to  harm  either  me  or  mine.  I  was 
already  beyond  their  reach.  Before  I  left  I 
wished  them  all  Godspeed  on  the  dainty  journey 
they  were  making  in  their  cockleshell.  Then 
so  far  as  they  were  concerned  I  dropped  off 
into  the  sea  with  my  wife  and  boy. 


CHAPTER   V 

WE  PROSPECT 

We  were  lucky  in  getting  into  a  new  tene- 
ment and  lucky  in  securing  the  top  floor.  This 
gave  us  easy  access  to  the  flat  roof  five 
stories  above  the  street.  From  here  we  not 
only  had  a  magnificent  view  of  the  harbor,  but 
even  on  the  hottest  days  felt  something  of  a 
sea  breeze.  Coming  down  here  in  June  we 
appreciated  that  before  the  summer  was  over. 

The  street  was  located  half  a  dozen  blocks 
from  the  waterfront  and  was  inhabited  almost 
wholly  by  Italians,  save  for  a  Frenchman  on 
the  corner  who  ran  a  bake-shop.  The  street 
itself  was  narrow  and  dirty  enough,  but  it 
opened  into  a  public  square  which  was  decidedly 
picturesque.  This  was  surrounded  by  tiny 
shops  and  foreign  banks,  and  was  always  alive 
with  color  and  incident.  The  vegetables  dis- 
played on  the  sidewalk  stands,  the  gay  hues 
of  the  women's  gowns,  the  gaudy  kerchiefs  of 
the  men,  gave  it  a  kaleidoscopic  effect  that 

67 


68  ONE  WAY  OUT 

made  it  as  fascinating  to  us  as  a  trip  abroad. 
The  section  was  known  as  Little  Italy,  and  so 
far  as  we  were  concerned  was  as  interesting  as 
Italy  itself. 

There  were  four  other  families  in  the  house, 
but  the  only  things  we  used  in  common  were 
the  narrow  iron  stairway  leading  upstairs  and 
the  roof.  The  other  tenants,  however,  seldom 
used  the  latter  at  all  except  to  hang  out  their 
occasional  washings.  For  the  first  month  or 
so  we  saw  little  of  these  people.  We  were  far 
too  busy  to  make  overtures,  and  as  for  them 
they  let  us  severely  alone.  They  were  not 
noisy,  and  except  for  a  sick  baby  on  the  first 
floor  we  heard  little  of  them  above  the  clamor 
of  the  street  below.  We  had  four  rooms. 
The  front  room  we  gave  to  the  boy,  the 
next  room  we  ourselves  occupied,  the  third 
room  we  used  for  a  sitting-  and  dining- 
room,  while  the  fourth  was  a  small  kitchen  with 
running  water.  As  compared  with  our  house 
the  quarters  at  first  seemed  cramped,  but  we 
had  cut  down  our  furniture  to  what  was  abso- 
lutely essential,  and  as  soon  as  our  eyes  ceased 
making  the  comparison  we  were  surprised  to 
find  how  comfortable  we  were.  In  the  dining- 
room,  for  instance,  we  had  nothing  but  three 


WE  PROSPECT  69 

chairs,  a  folding  table  and  a  closet  for  the 
dishes.  Lounging  chairs  and  so  forth  we  did 
away  with  altogether.  Nor  was  there  any 
need  of  making  provision  for  possible  guests. 
Here  throughout  the  whole  house  was  the 
greatest  saving.  I  took  a  fierce  pleasure  at 
first  in  thus  caring  for  my  own  alone. 

The  boy's  room  contained  a  cot,  a  chair,  a 
rug  and  a  few  of  his  personal  treasures;  our 
own  room  contained  just  the  bed,  chair  and 
washstand.  Ruth  added  a  few  touches  with 
pictures  and  odds  and  ends  that  took  off  the 
bare  aspect  without  cluttering  up.  In  two 
weeks  these  scant  quarters  were  every  whit  as 
much  home  as  our  tidy  little  house  had  been. 
That  was  Ruth's  part  in  it.  She'd  make  a 
home  out  of  a  prison. 

On  the  second  day  we  were  fairly  settled,, 
and  that  night  after  the  boy  had  gone  to  bed 
Ruth  sat  down  at  my  side  with  a  pad  and 
pencil  in  her  hand. 

"Billy,"  she  said,  "there's  one  thing  we're 
going  to  do  in  this  new  beginning:  we're  go- 
ing to  save — if  it's  only  ten  cents  a  week." 

I  shook  my  head  doubtfully. 

"I'm  afraid  you  can't  until  I  get  a  raise," 
I  said. 


70  ONE  WAY  OUT 

"We  tried  waiting  for  raises  before,"  she 
answered. 

"I  know,  but—" 

"There  aren't  going  to  be  any  buts,"  she  an- 
swered decidedly. 

"But  six  dollars  a  week — " 

"Is  six  dollars  a  week,"  she  broke  in. 
"We  must  live  on  five-fifty,  that's  all." 

"With  steak  thirty  cents  a  pound?" 

"We  won't  have  steak.  That's  the  point. 
Our  neighbors  around  here  don't  look  starved, 
and  they  have  larger  families  than  ours.  And 
they  don't  even  buy  intelligently." 

"How  do  you  know  that?" 

"I've  been  watching  them  at  the  little  stores 
in  the  square.  They  pay  there  as  much  for 
half-decayed  stuff  as  they'd  have  to  pay  for 
fresh  odds  and  ends  at  the  big  market." 

She  rested  her  pad  upon  her  knee. 

"Now  in  the  first  place,  Billy,  we're  going 
to  live  much  more  simply." 

"We've  never  been  extravagant,"  I  said. 

"Not  in  a  way,"  she  answered  slowly,  "but 
in  another  way  we  have.  I've  been  doing  a  lot 
of  thinking  in  the  last  few  days  and  I  see  now 
where  we've  had  a  great  many  unnecessary 
things." 


J 


WE  PROSPECT  71 

"Not  for  the  last  few  weeks,  anyhow,"  I 
said. 

"Those  don't  count.  But  before  that  I 
mean.  For  instance  there's  coffee.  It's  a  lux- 
ury. Why  we  spent  almost  thirty  cents  a  week 
on  that  alone." 

"I  know  but—" 

"There's  another  but.  There's  no  nourish- 
ment in  coffee  and  we  can't  afford  it.  We'll 
spend  that  money  for  milk.  We  must  have 
good  milk  and  you  must  get  it  for  me  some- 
where up  town.  I  don't  like  the  looks  of  the 
milk  around  here.  That  will  be  eight  cents 
a  day." 

"Better  have  two  quarts,"  I  suggested. 

She  thought  a  moment. 

"Yes,"  she  agreed,  "two  quarts,  because 
that's  going  to  be  the  basis  of  our  food. 
That's  a  dollar  twelve  cents  a  week." 

She  made  up  a  little  face  at  this.  I  smiled 
grandly. 

"Now  for  breakfast  we  must  have  oatmeal 
every  morning.  And  we'll  get  it  in  bulk. 
I've  priced  it  and  it's  only  a  little  over  three 
cents  a  pound  at  some  of  the  stores." 

"And  the  kind  we've  always  had?" 

"About  twelve  when  it's  done  up  in  pack- 


72  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ages.  That's  about  the  proportion  by  which 
I  expect  to  cut  down  everything.  But  you'll 
have  to  eat  milk  on  it  instead  of  cream.  Then 
we'll  use  a  lot  of  potatoes.  They  are  very 
good  baked  for  breakfast.  And  with  them 
you  may  have  salt  fish — oh,  there  are  a  dozen 
nice  ways  of  fixing  that.  And  you  may  have 
griddle  cakes  and — you  wait  and  see  the  things 
I'll  give  you  for  breakfast.  You'll  have  to 
have  a  good  luncheon  of  course,  but  we'll  have 
our  principal  meal  when  you  get  back  from 
work  at  night.  But  you  won't  get  steak. 
When  we  do  get  meat  we'll  buy  soup  bones  and 
meat  we  can  boil.  And  instead  of  pies  and 
cakes  we'll  have  nourishing  puddings  of  corn- 
starch and  rice.  There's  another  good  point — 
rice.  It's  cheap  and  we'll  have  a  lot  of  it. 
Look  at  how  the  Japanese  live  on  it  day  after 
day  and  keep  fat  and  strong.  Then  there's 
cheap  fish;  rock  cod  and  such  to  make  good 
chowders  of  or  to  fry  in  pork  fat  like  the  bass 
and  trout  I  used  to  have  back  home.  Then 
there's  baked  beans.  We  ought  to  have  them 
at  least  twice  a  week  in  the  winter.  But  this 
summer  we'll  live  mostly  on  fish  and  vegeta- 
bles. I  can  get  them  fresh  at  the  market." 
**It  sounds  good,"  I  said. 


WE  PROSPECT  '73 

"Just  you  wait,"  she  cried  excitedly.  "I'll 
fatten  up  both  you  and  the  boy." 

"And  yourself,  little  woman,"  I  reminded 
her.  "I'm  not  going  to  take  the  saving  out 
of  you." 

"Don't  you  worry  about  me,"  she  answered. 
"This  will  be  easier  than  the  other  life.  I 
shan't  have  to  worry  about  clothes  or  dinners 
or  parties  for  the  boy.  And  it  isn't  going  to 
take  any  time  at  all  to  keep  these  four  rooms 
clean  and  sweet." 

I  took  the  rest  of  the  week  as  a  sort  of  vaca- 
tion and  used  it  to  get  acquainted  with  my  new 
surroundings.  It's  a  fact  that  this  section  of 
the  city  which  for  twenty  years  had  been 
within  a  short  walk  of  my  office  was  as  foreign 
to  me  as  Europe.  I  had  never  before  been 
down  here  and  all  I  knew  about  it  was  through 
the  ocasional  head-lines  in  the  papers  in  con- 
nection with  stabbing  affrays.  For  the  first 
day  or  two  I  felt  as  though  I  ought  to  carry  a 
revolver.  Whenever  I  was  forced  to  leave 
Ruth  alone  in  the  house  I  instructed  her  upon 
no  circumstances  to  open  the  door.  The  boy 
and  I  arranged  a  secret  rap — an  idea  that 
pleased  him  mightily — and  until  she  heard  the 
single  knock  followed  by  two  quick  sharp  ones, 


74  ONE  WAY  OUT 

she  was  not  to  answer.  But  in  wandering 
around  among  these  people  it  was  difficult  to 
think  of  them  as  vicious.  The  Italian  element 
was  a  laughing,  indolent-appearing  group;  the 
scattered  Jewish  folk  were  almost  timid  and 
kept  very  much  to  themselves.  I  didn't  find  a 
really  tough  face  until  I  came  to  the  water  front 
where  they  spoke  English. 

On  the  third  morning  after  a  breakfast  of 
oatmeal  and  hot  biscuit — and,  by  the  way, 
Ruth  effected  a  fifty  per  cent,  saving  right  here 
by  using  the  old-fashioned  formula  of  soda  and 
cream  of  tartar  instead  of  baking  powder — 
and  baked  potatoes,  Ruth  and  the  boy  and  my- 
self started  on  an  exploring  trip.  Our  idea 
was  to  get  a  line  on  just  what  our  opportuni- 
ties were  down  here  and  to  nose  out  the  best 
and  cheapest  places  to  buy.  The  thing  that 
impressed  us  right  off  was  the  big  advantage 
we  had  in  being  within  easy  access  of  the  big 
provision  centres.  We  were  within  ten  min- 
utes' walk  of  the  market,  within  fifteen  of  the 
water  front,  within  three  of  the  square  and 
within  twenty  of  the  department  stores.  At 
all  of  these  places  we  found  special  bargains 
for  the  day  made  to  attract  in  town  those  from 
a  distance.     If  one  rose  early  and  reached 


WE  PROSPECT  75 

them  about  as  soon  as  they  were  opened  one 
could  often  buy  things  almost  at  cost  and  some- 
times below  cost.  For  instance,  we  went  up 
town  to  one  of  the  largest  but  cheaper  grade 
department  stores — we  had  heard  its  name  for 
years  but  had  never  been  inside  the  building — 
and  we  found  that  in  their  grocery  department 
they  had  special  mark-downs  every  day  in  the 
week  for  a  limited  supply  of  goods.  We 
bought  sugar  this  day  at  a  cent  a  pound  less 
than  the  market  price  and  good  beans  for  two 
cents  a  quart  less.  It  sounds  at  first  like 
rather  picayune  saving  but  it  counts  up  at  the 
end  of  the  year.  Then  every  stall  in  the 
market  had  its  bargain  of  meats — wholesome 
bits  but  unattractive  to  the  careless  buyer.  We 
bought  here  for  fifty  cents  enough  round  steak 
for  several  good  meals  of  hash.  We  couldn't 
have  bought  it  for  less  than  a  dollar  in  the 
suburbs  and  even  at  that  we  wouldn't  have 
known  anything  about  it  for  the  store  was  too 
far  for  Ruth  to  make  a  personal  visit  and  the 
butcher  himself  would  never  have  mentioned 
such  an  odd  end  to  a  member  of  our  neighbor- 
hood. 

We    enjoyed    wandering    around    this    big 
market  which  in  itself  was  like  a  trip  to  another 


76  ONE  WAY  OUT 

land.  Later  one  of  our  favorite  amuse- 
ments was  to  come  down  here  at  night  and 
watch  the  hustHng  crowds  and  the  hghts  and 
the  pretty  colors  and  confusion.  It  reminded 
Ruth,  she  said,  of  a  country  fair.  She  always 
carried  a  pad  and  pencil  and  made  notes  of 
good  places  to  buy.  I  still  have  those  and  am 
referring  to  them  now  as  I  write  this. 

"Blanks,"  she  writes  (I  omit  the  name), 
**nice  clean  store  with  pleasant  salesman.  Has 
good  soup  bones," 

Again,  "Blank  and  Blank — good  place  to 
buy  sausage." 

Here  too  the  market  gardeners  gathered  as 
early  as  four  o'clock  with  their  vegetables 
fresh  from  the  suburbs.  They  did  mostly  a 
wholesale  business  but  if  one  knew  how  it  was 
always  possible  to  buy  of  them  a  cabbage  or 
a  head  of  lettuce  or  a  few  apples  or  a  peck  of 
potatoes.  They  were  a  genial,  ruddy-cheeked 
lot  and  after  a  while  they  came  to  know  Ruth. 
Often  I'd  go  up  there  with  her  before  work 
and  she  with  a  basket  on  her  arm  would  buy 
for  the  day.  It  was  always,  "Good  morning, 
miss,"  in  answer  to  her  smile.  They  were 
respectful  whether  I  was  along  or  not.  But 
for  that  matter   I  never  knew  anyone  who 


WE  PROSPECT  ^y 

wasn't  respectful  to  Ruth.  They  used  to  Hke 
to  see  her  come,  I  think,  for  she  stood  out  in 
rather  marked  contrast  to  the  bowed  figures  of 
the  other  women.  Later  on  they  used  to  save 
out  for  her  any  particularly  choice  vegetable 
they  might  have.  She  insisted  however  in 
paying  them  an  extra  penny  for  such  things. 

From  the  market  we  went  down  a  series  of 
narrow  streets  which  led  to  the  water  front. 
Here  the  vessels  from  the  Banks  come  in  to 
unload.  The  air  was  salty  and  though  to  us 
at  first  the  wharves  seemed  dirty  we  got  used 
to  them,  after  a  while,  and  enjoyed  the  smell 
of  the  fish  fresh  from  the  water. 

Seeing  whole  push  carts  full  of  fish  and 
watching  them  handled  with  a  pitch  fork  as  a 
man  tosses  hay  didn't  whet  our  appetites  any, 
but  when  we  remembered  that  it  was  these 
same  fish — a  day  or  two  older, — for  which  we 
had  been  paying  double  the  price  charged  for 
them  here  the  difiference  overcame  our  scruples. 
The  men  here  interested  me.  I  found  that 
while  the  crew  of  every  schooner  numbered  a 
goodly  per  cent,  of  foreigners,  still  the  greater 
part  were  American  born.  The  new  comers  as 
a  rule  bought  small  launches  of  their  own  and 
went  into  business  for  themselves.     The  Eng- 


78  ONE  WAY  OUT 

lish  speaking  portion  of  the  crews  were  also  as 
a  rule  the  rougher  element.  The  loafers  and 
hangers-on  about  the  wharves  were  also  Eng- 
lish speaking.  This  was  a  fact  that  later  on 
I  found  to  be  rather  significant  and  to  hold 
true  in  a  general  way  in  all  branches  of  the 
lower  class  of  labor. 

The  barrooms  about  here — always  a  pretty 
sure  index  of  the  men  of  any  community — 
were  more  numerous  and  of  decidedly  a 
rougher  character  than  those  about  the  square. 
A  man  would  be  a  good  deal  better  justified  in 
carrying  a  revolver  on  this  street  than  he  would 
in  Little  Italy.  I  never  allowed  Ruth  to  come 
down  here  alone. 

From  here  we  wandered  back  and  I  found 
a  public  playground  and  bathhouse  by  the  wa- 
ter's edge.  This  attracted  me  at  once.  I  in- 
vestigated this  and  found  it  offered  a  fine  op- 
portunity for  bathing.  Little  dressing-rooms 
were  provided  and  for  a  penny  a  man  could 
get  a  clean  towel  and  for  five  cents  a  bathing 
suit.  There  was  no  reason  that  I  could  see, 
however,  why  we  shouldn't  provide  our  own. 
It  was  within  an  easy  ten  minutes  of  the  flat 
and  I  saw  right  then  where  I  would  get  a  dip 
every  day.     It  would  be  a  great  thing  for  the 


WE  PROSPECT  79 

boy,  too.  I  had  always  wanted  him  to  learn  to 
swim. 

On  the  way  home  we  passed  through  the 
Jewish  quarter  and  I  made  a  note  of  the  cloth- 
ing offered  for  sale  here.  The  street  was  lined 
with  second  hand  stores  with  coats  and  trousers 
swinging  over  the  sidewalk,  and  the  windows 
were  filled  with  odd  lots  of  shoes.  Then  too 
there  were  the  pawnshops.  I'd  always 
thought  of  a  pawnshop  as  not  being  exactly 
respectable  and  had  the  feeling  that  anyone 
who  secured  anything  from  one  of  them  was 
in  a  way  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods.  But  as 
I  passed  them  now,  I  received  a  new  impres- 
sion. They  seemed,  down  here,  as  legitimate  a 
business  as  the  second  hand  stores.  The  win- 
dows offered  an  assortment  of  everything  from 
watches  to  banjoes  and  guns  but  among  them 
I  also  noticed  many  carpenter's  tools  and  so 
forth.  That  might  be  a  useful  thing  to  remem- 
ber. 

It  was  odd  how  in  a  day  our  point  of  view 
had  changed.  If  I  had  brought  Ruth  and  the 
boy  down  through  here  a  month  before,  we 
would  all,  I  think,  have  been  more  impressed 
by  the  congestion  and  the  picturesque  details 
of  the  squalor  than  anything  else.     We  would 


8o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

have  picked  our  way  gingerly  and  Ruth  would 
have  sighed  often  in  pity  and,  comparing  the 
lives  of  these  people  with  our  own,  would  prob- 
ably have  made  an  extra  generous  contribution 
to  the  Salvation  Army  the  next  time  they  came 
round.  I'm  not  saying  now  that  there  isn't 
misery  enough  there  and  in  every  like  section 
of  every  city,  but  I'll  say  that  in  a  great  many 
cases  the  same  people  who  grovel  in  the  filth 
here  would  grovel  in  a  different  kind  of  filth 
if  they  had  ten  thousand  a  year.  At  that  you 
can't  blame  them  greatly  for  they  don't  know 
any  better.  But  when  you  learn,  as  I  learned 
later,  that  some  of  the  proprietors  of  these 
second  hand  stores  and  fly-blown  butcher  shops 
have  sons  in  Harvard  and  daughters  in  Wel- 
lesley,  it  makes  you  think.  But  I'm  running 
ahead. 

The  point  was  that  now  that  we  felt  ourselves 
in  a  way  one  of  these  people  and  viewed  the 
street  not  from  the  superior  height  of  native- 
born  Americans  but  just  as  emigrants,  neither 
the  soiled  clothes  of  the  inhabitants  nor  the  clut- 
tered street  swarming  with  laughing  young- 
sters impressed  us  unfavorably  at  all.  The 
impassive  men  smoking  cigarettes  at  their 
doors   looked   contented  enough,   the   women 


WE  PROSPECT  8l 

were  not  such  as  to  excite  pity,  and  if  you  no- 
ticed, there  were  as  many  children  around  the 
local  soda  water  fountains  as  you'd  find  in  a 
suburban  drug  store.  They  all  had  clothes 
enough  and  appeared  well  fed  and  if  some  of 
them  looked  pasty,  the  sweet  stuff  in  the  stores 
was  enough  to  account  for  that. 

At  any  rate  we  came  back  to  our  flat  that 
day  neither  depressed  nor  discouraged  but  de- 
cidedly in  better  spirits.  Of  course  we  had 
seen  only  the  surface  and  I  suspected  that  when 
we  really  got  into  these  lives  we'd  find  a  bad 
condition  of  things.  It  must  be  so,  for  that 
was  the  burden  of  all  we  read.  But  we  would 
have  time  enough  to  worry  about  that  when 
we  discovered  it  for  ourselves. 


CHAPTER   VI 

I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER 

That  night  Ruth  and  I  had  a  talk  about  the 
boy.  We  both  came  back  from  our  walk,  with 
him  more  on  our  minds  than  anything  else. 
He  had  been  interested  in  everything  and  had 
asked  about  a  thousand  questions  and  gone  to 
bed  eager  to  be  out  on  the  street  again  the  next 
day.  We  knew  we  couldn't  keep  him  cooped 
up  in  the  flat  all  the  time  and  of  course  both 
Ruth  and  I  were  going  to  be  too  busy  to  go 
out  with  him  every  time  he  went.  As  for  let- 
ting him  run  loose  around  these  streets  with 
nothing  to  do,  that  would  be  sheer  foolhardi- 
ness.  It  was  too  late  in  the  season  to  enroll 
him  in  the  public  schools  and  even  that  would 
have  left  him  idle  during  the  long  summer 
months. 

We  talked  some  at  first  of  sending  him  off 
into  the  country  to  a  farm.  There  were  two 
or  three  families  back  where  Ruth  had  lived 
who  might  be  willing  to  take  him  for  three  or 

^2 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         83 

four  dollars  a  week  and  we  had  the  money  left 
over  from  the  sale  of  our  household  goods  to 
cover  that.  But  this  would  mean  the  sacri- 
fice of  our  emergency  fund  which  we  wished 
to  preserve  more  for  the  boy's  sake  than  our 
own  and  it  would  mean  leaving  Ruth  very 
much  alone. 

''I'll  do  it,  Billy,"  she  said  bravely,  "but  can't 
we  wait  a  day  or  two  before  deciding?  And  I 
think  I  can  make  time  to  get  out  with  him. 
I'll  get  up  earlier  in  the  morning  and  I'll  leave 
my  work  at  night  until  after  he's  gone  to  bed." 

So  she  would.  She'd  have  worked  all  night 
to  keep  him  at  home  and  then  gone  out  with 
him  all  day  if  it  had  been  possible.  I  saw  it 
would  be  dragging  the  heart  out  of  her  to  send 
the  boy  away  and  made  up  my  mind  right  then 
and  there  that  some  other  solution  must  be 
found  for  the  problem.  Good  Lord,  after  I'd 
led  her  down  here  the  least  I  could  do  was  to 
let  her  keep  the  one.  And  to  tell  the  truth 
I  found  my  own  heart  sink  at  the  suggestion. 

"What  do  the  boys  round  here  do  in  the 
summer?"  she  asked. 

I  didn't  know  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
find  out.  The  next  day  I  went  down  to  a  set- 
tlement house  which  I  remembered  passing  at 


84  ONE  WAY  OUT 

some  time  or  other.  I  didn't  know  what  it  was 
but  it  sounded  Hkc  some  sort  of  philanthropic 
enterprise  for  the  neighborhood  and  if  so  they 
ought  to  be  able  to  answer  my  questions  there. 
The  outside  of  the  building  was  not  particularly 
attractive  but  upon  entering  I  was  pleasantly 
surprised  at  the  air  of  cleanliness  and  comfort 
which  prevailed.  There  were  a  number  of 
small  boys  around  and  in  one  room  I  saw  them 
reading  and  playing  checkers.  I  sought  out  the 
secretary  and  found  him  a  pleasant  young  fel- 
low though  with  something  of  the  professional 
pleasantness  which  men  in  this  work  seem  to 
acquire.  He  smiled  too  much  and  held  my 
hand  a  bit  too  long  to  suit  me.  He  took  me 
into  his  office  and  offered  me  a  chair.  I  told 
him  briefly  that  I  had  just  moved  down  here 
and  had  a  boy  of  ten  whom  I  wished  to  keep 
off  the  streets  and  keep  occupied.  I  asked  him 
what  the  boys  around  here  did  during  the  sum- 
mer. 

"Most  of  them  work,"  he  answered. 

I  hadn't  thought  of  this. 

"What  do  they  do?" 

"A  good  many  sell  papers,  some  of  them 
serve  as  errand  boys  and  others  help  their  par- 
ents." 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         85 

Dick  was  certainly  too  inexperienced  for  the 
first  two  jobs  and  there  was  nothing  in  my 
work  he  could  do  to  help.  Then  the  man  be- 
gan to  ask  me  questions.  He  was  evidently 
struck  by  the  fact  that  I  didn't  seem  to  be  in 
place  here.  I  answered  briefly  that  I  had  been 
a  clerk  all  my  life,  had  lost  my  position  and 
was  now  a  common  day  laborer.  The  boy,  I 
explained,  was  not  yet  used  to  his  life  down 
here  and  I  wanted  to  keep  him  occupied  until 
he  got  his  strength. 

''You're  right,"  he  answered.  "Why  don't 
you  bring  him  in  here?" 

"What  would  he  do  here?" 

"It's  a  good  loafing  place  for  him  and  we 
have  some  evening  classes." 

"I  want  him  at  home  nights,"  I  answered. 

"The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  summer  classes  which 
begin  a  little  later  on.  Why  don't  you  put 
him  into  some  of  those?" 

I  had  always  heard  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  but 
I  had  never  got  into  touch  with  it,  for  I 
thought  it  was  purely  a  religious  organization. 
But  that  proposition  sounded  good.  I'd  passed 
the  building  a  thousand  times  but  had  never 
been  inside.  I  thanked  him  and  started  to 
leave. 


86  ONE  WAY  OUT 

"I  hope  this  won't  be  your  last  visit,"  he  said 
cordially.  "Come  down  and  see  what  we're 
doing.     You'll  find  a  lot  of  boys  here  at  night." 

"Thanks,"  I  answered. 

I  went  direct  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  building. 
Here  again  I  was  surprised  to  find  a  most  at- 
tractive interior.  It  looked  like  the  inside  of 
a  prosperous  club  house.  I  don't  know  what 
I  expected  but  I  wouldn't  have  been  startled  if 
I'd  found  a  hall  filled  with  wooden  settees  and 
a  prayer  meeting  going  on.  I  had  a  lot  of 
such  preconceived  notions  knocked  out  of  my 
head  in  the  next  few  years. 

In  response  to  my  questions  I  received  re- 
plies that  made  me  feel  I'd  strayed  by  mistake 
into  some  university.  For  that  matter  it  zvas 
a  university.  There  was  nothing  from  the  pri- 
mary class  in  English  to  a  professional  educa- 
tion in  the  law  that  a  man  couldn't  acquire  here 
for  a  sum  that  was  astonishingly  small.  The 
most  of  the  classes  cost  nothing  after  payment 
of  the  membership  fee  of  ten  dollars.  The  in- 
structors were,  many  of  them,  the  same  men 
who  gave  similar  courses  at  a  neighboring 
college.  Not  only  that,  but  the  hours  were  so 
arranged  as  to  accommodate  workers  of  all 
classes.     If  you  couldn't  attend  in  the  day- 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         8/ 

time,  you  could  at  night.  I  was  astonished  to 
think  that  this  opportunity  had  always  been 
at  my  hand  and  I  had  never  suspected  it.  In 
the  ten  years  before  I  was  married  I  could 
have  qualified  as  a  lawyer  or  almost  anything 
else. 

This  was  not  all;  a  young  man  took  me 
over  the  building  and  showed  me  the  library, 
the  reading-room,  rooms  where  the  young  men 
gathered  for  games,  and  then  down  stairs  to 
the  well  equipped  gymnasium  with  its  shower 
baths.  Here  a  boy  could  take  a  regular  course 
in  gymnasium  work  under  a  skilled  instructor 
or  if  he  showed  any  skill  devote  himself  to 
such  sports  as  basketball,  running,  baseball 
or  swimming.  In  addition  to  these  advan- 
tages amusements  were  provided  through  the 
year  in  the  form  of  lectures,  amateur  shows 
and  music.  In  the  summer,  special  opportuni- 
ties were  offered  for  out-door  sports.  More- 
over the  Association  managed  summer  camps 
where  for  a  nominal  fee  the  boys  could  enjoy 
the  life  of  the  woods.  A  boy  must  be  poor  in- 
deed who  could  not  afford  most  of  these  oppor- 
tunities. And  if  he  was  out  of  work  the  em- 
ployment bureau  conducted  here  would  help 
him  to  a  position.     I  came  back  to  the  main 


88  ONE  WAY  OUT 

office  wondering  still  more  how  in  the  world 
rd  ever  missed  such  chances  all  these  years. 
It  was  a  question  I  asked  myself  many  times 
during  the  next  few  months.  And  the  answer 
seemed  to  lie  in  the  dead  level  of  that  other 
life.  We  never  lifted  our  eyes;  we  never 
looked  around  us.  If  we  were  hard  pressed 
either  we  accepted  our  lot  resignedly  or  cursed 
our  luck,  and  let  it  go  at  that.  These  op- 
portunities were  for  a  class  which  had  no  lot 
and  didn't  know  the  meaning  of  luck.  The 
others  could  have  had  them,  too — can  have 
them — for  the  taking,  but  neither  by  education 
nor  temperament  are  they  qualified  to  do  so. 
There's  a  good  field  for  missionary  work  there 
for  someone. 

Before  I  came  out  of  the  building  I  had  en- 
rolled Dick  as  a  member  and  picked  out  for 
him  a  summer  course  in  English  in  which  he 
was  a  bit  backward.  I  also  determined  to 
start  him  in  some  regular  gymnasium  work. 
He  needed  hardening  up. 

I  came  home  and  announced  my  success  to 
Ruth  and  she  was  delighted.  I  suspected  by 
the  look  in  her  eyes  that  she  had  been  worrying 
all  day  for  fear  there  would  be  no  alternative 
but  to  send  the  boy  off. 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         89 

"I  knew  you  would  find  a  way,"  she  said 
excitedly. 

"I  wish  I'd  found  it  twenty  years  ago,"  I 
said  regretfully.  "Then  you'd  have  a  lawyer 
for  a  husband  instead  of  a — ." 

"Hush,"  she  answered  putting  her  hand 
over  my  mouth.  "I've  a  man  for  a  husband 
and  that's  all  I  care  about." 

The  way  she  said  it  made  me  feel  that  after 
all  being  a  man  was  what  counted  and  that  if  I 
could  live  up  to  that  day  by  day,  no  matter  what 
happened,  then  I  could  be  well  satisfied.  I 
guess  the  city  directory  was  right  when  before 
now  it  couldn't  define  me  any  more  definitely 
than,  "clerk."  And  there  is  about  as  much 
man  in  a  clerk  as  in  a  valet.  They  are  both 
shadows. 

The  boy  fell  in  with  my  plans  eagerly,  for 
the  gymnasium  work  made  him  forget  the 
study  part  of  the  programme.  The  next  day  I 
took  him  up  there  and  saw  him  introduced  to 
the  various  department  heads.  I  paid  his 
membership  fee  and  they  gave  him  a  card 
which  made  him  feel  like  a  real  club  man.  I 
tell  you  it  took  a  weight  off  my  mind. 

On  the  Monday  following  our  arrival  in  our 
new  quarters,  I  rose  at  five-thirty,  put  on  my 


90  ONE  WAY  OUT 

overalls  and  had  breakfast.  I  ate  a  larg-e  bowl 
of  oatmeal,  a  generous  supply  of  flapjacks, 
made  of  some  milk  that  had  soured,  sprinkled 
with  molasses,  and  a  cup  of  hot  black  coffee 
— the  last  of  a  can  we  had  brought  down  with 
us  among  the  left-over  kitchen  supplies. 

For  lunch  Ruth  had  packed  my  box  with 
cold  cream-of-tartar  biscuit,  well  buttered,  a 
bit  of  cheese,  a  little  bowl  of  rice  pudding,  two 
hard-boiled  eggs  and  a  pint  bottle  of  cold 
coffee.  I  kissed  her  goodby  and  started  out 
on  foot  for  the  street  where  I  was  to  take  up 
my  work.  The  foreman  demanded  my  name, 
registered  me,  told  me  where  to  find  a  shovel 
and  assigned  me  to  a  gang  under  another  fore- 
man. At  seven  o'clock  I  took  my  place  with  a 
dozen  Italians  and  began  to  shovel.  My 
muscles  were  decidedly  flabby,  and  by  noon  I 
began  to  find  it  hard  work.  I  was  glad  to 
stop  and  eat  my  lunch.  I  couldn't  remember 
a  meal  in  five  years  that  tasted  as  good  as 
that  did.  My  companions  watched  me  curi- 
ously— perhaps  a  bit  suspiciously — but  they 
chattered  in  a  foreign  tongue  among  them- 
selves and  rather  shied  away  from  me.  On 
that  first  day  I  made  up  my  mind  to  one  thing 
— I  would  learn  Italian  before  the  year  was 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         91 

done,  and  know  something  more  about  these 
people  and  their  ways.  They  were  the  key  to 
the  contractor's  problem  and  it  would  pay  a 
man  to  know  how  to  handle  them.  As  I 
watched  the  boss  over  us  that  day  it  did  not 
seem  to  me  that  he  understood  very  well. 

From  one  to  five  the  work  became  an  in- 
creasing strain.  Even  with  my  athletic  train- 
ing I  wasn't  used  to  such  a  prolonged  test  of 
one  set  of  muscles.  My  legs  became  heavy, 
my  back  ached,  and  my  shoulders  finally  re- 
fused to  obey  me  except  under  the  sheer  com- 
mand of  my  will.  I  knew,  however,  that  time 
would  remedy  this.  I  might  be  sore  and  lame 
for  a  day  or  two,  but  I  had  twice  the  natural 
strength  of  these  short,  close-knit  foreigners. 
The  excitement  and  novelty  of  the  employment 
helped  me  through  those  first  few  days.  I  felt 
the  joy  of  the  pioneer — felt  the  sweet  sense  of 
delving  in  the  mother  earth.  It  touched  in 
me  some  responsive  chord  that  harked  back  to 
my  ancestors  who  broke  the  rocky  soil  of  New 
England.  Of  the  life  of  my  fellows  bustling 
by  on  the  earth-crust  overhead — those  fellows 
of  whom  so  lately  I  had  been  one — I  was  not 
at  all  conscious.  I  might  have  been  at  work 
on  some  new  planet  for  all  they  touched  my 


92  ONE  WAY  OUT 

new  life.  I  could  see  them  peering  over  the 
wooden  rail  around  our  excavation  as  they 
stopped  to  stare  down  at  us,  but  I  did  not  con- 
nect them  with  myself.  And  yet  I  felt  closer 
to  this  old  city  than  ever  before.  I  thrilled 
with  the  joy  of  the  constructor,  the  builder, 
even  in  this  humble  capacity.  I  felt  superior 
to  those  for  whom  I  was  building.  In  a 
coarse  way  I  suppose  it  was  a  reflection  of 
some  artistic  sense — something  akin  to  the 
creative  impulse.  I  can  say  truthfully  that  at 
the  end  of  that  first  day  I  came  home — be- 
grimed and  sore  as  I  was — with  a  sense  of 
fuller  life  than  so  far  I  had  ever  experienced. 
I  found  Ruth  waiting  for  me  with  some  anx- 
iety. She  came  into  my  soil-stained  arms  as 
eagerly  as  a  bride.  It  was  good.  It  took  all 
the  soreness  out  of  me.  Before  supper  I  took 
the  boy  and  we  went  down  to  the  public  baths 
on  the  waterfront  and  there  I  dived  and 
splashed  and  swam  like  a  young  whale.  The 
sting  of  the  cold  salt  water  was  all  the  further 
balm  I  needed.  I  came  out  tingling  and  fit 
right  then  for  another  nine-hour  day.  But 
when  I  came  back  I  threatened  our  first  week's 
savings  at  the  supper-table.     Ruth  had  made 


I  BECOME  A  DAY  LABORER         93 

more  hot  griddle-cakes  and  I  kept  her  at  the 
stove  until  I  was  ashamed  to  do  it  longer. 
The  boy,  too,  after  his  plunge,  showed  a  better 
appetite  than  for  weeks. 


CHAPTER  VII 

KINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK 

The  second  day,  I  woke  up  lame  and  stiff 
but  I  gave  myself  a  good  brisk  rub  down  and 
kneaded  my  arm  and  leg  muscles  until  they 
were  pretty  well  limbered  up.  The  thing  that 
pleased  me  was  the  way  I  felt  towards  my 
new  work  that  second  morning.  I'd  been  a 
bit  afraid  of  a  reaction — of  waking  up  with  all 
the  romance  gone.  That,  I  knew,  would  be 
deadly.  Once  let  me  dwell  on  the  naked 
material  facts  of  my  condition  and  I'd  be  lost. 
That's  true  of  course  in  any  occupation.  The 
man  who  works  without  an  inspiration  of  some 
sort  is  not  only  discontented  but  a  poor  work- 
man. I  remember  distinctly  that  when  I 
opened  my  eyes  and  realized  my  surroundings 
and  traced  back  the  incidents  of  yesterday 
to  the  ditch,  I  was  concerned  principally 
with  the  problem  of  a  stone  in  our  path  upon 
which  we  had  been  working.  I  wanted  to 
get  back  to  it.     We  had  worked  upon  it  for 

94 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  95 

an  hour  without  fully  uncovering  it  and  I  was 
as  eager  as  the  foreman  to  learn  whether  it 
was  a  ledge  rock  or  just  a  fragment.  This 
interest  was  not  associated  with  the  elevated 
road  for  whom  the  work  was  being  done,  nor 
the  contractor  who  had  undertaken  the  job, 
nor  the  foreman  who  was  supervising  it.  It 
was  a  question  which  concerned  only  me  and 
Mother  Earth  who  seemed  to  be  doing  her  best 
to  balk  us  at  every  turn.  I  forgot  the  sticky, 
wet  clay  in  which  I  had  floundered  for  nine 
hours,  forgot  the  noisome  stench  which  at 
times  we  were  forced  to  breathe,  forgot  my 
lame  hands  and  back.  I  recalled  only  the 
problem  itself  and  the  skill  with  which  the  man 
they  called  Anton'  handled  his  crow  bar.  He 
was  a  master  of  it.  In  removing  the  smaller 
slabs  which  lay  around  the  big  one  he  aston- 
ished me  with  his  knowledge  of  how  to  place 
the  bar.  He'd  come  to  my  side  where  I  was 
prying  with  all  my  strength  and  with  a  wave 
of  his  hand  for  me  to  stand  back,  would  ad- 
just two  or  three  smaller  rocks  as  a  fulcrum 
and  then,  with  the  gentlest  of  movements, 
work  the  half-ton  weight  inch  by  inch  to 
where  he  wanted  it.  He  could  swing  the  rock 
to  the  right  or  left,  raise  or  lower  it,  at  will. 


96  ONE  WAY  OUT 

and  always  he  made  the  weight  of  the  rock, 
against  which  I  had  striven  so  vainly,  do  the 
work.  That  was  something  worth  learning. 
I  wanted  to  get  back  and  study  him.  I 
wanted  to  get  back  and  finish  uncovering  that 
rock.  I  wanted  to  get  back  and  bring  the  job 
as  a  whole  to  a  finish  so  as  to  have  a  new  one 
to  tackle.  Even  at  the  end  of  that  first  day 
I  felt  I  had  learned  enough  to  make  myself  a 
man  of  greater  power  than  I  was  the  day  be- 
fore. And  always  in  the  background  was  the 
unknown  goal  to  which  this  toil  was  to  lead. 
I  hadn't  yet  stopped  to  figure  out  what  the 
goal  was  but  that  it  was  worth  while  I  had  no 
doubt  for  I  was  no  longer  stationary.  I  was  a 
constructor.  I  was  in  touch  with  a  big  enter- 
prise of  development. 

I  don't  know  that  I've  made  myself  clear. 
I  wasn't  very  clear  in  my  own  mind  then  but 
I  know  that  I  had  a  very  conscious  impression 
of  the  sort  which  I've  tried  to  put  into  words. 
And  I  know  that  it  filled  me  with  a  great  big 
joy.  I  never  woke  up  with  any  such  feeling 
when  with  the  United  Woollen.  My  only 
thought  in  the  morning  then  was  how  much 
time  I   must  give  myself  to   catch  the   six- 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  97 

thirty.  When  I  reached  the  office  I  hung  up 
my  hat  and  coat  and  sat  down  to  the  imper- 
sonal figures  hke  an  automaton.  There  was 
nothing  of  me  in  the  work;  there  couldn't  be. 
How  petty  it  seemed  now!  I  suppose  the 
company,  as  an  industrial  enterprise,  was  in 
the  line  of  development,  but  that  idea 
never  penetrated  as  far  as  the  clerical  depart- 
ment. We  didn't  feel  it  any  more  than  the 
adding  machines  do. 

Ruth  had  a  good  breakfast  for  me  and  when 
I  came  into  the  kitchen  she  was  trying  to  brush 
the  dried  clay  ofif  my  overalls. 

''Good  Heavens!"  I  said,  **don't  waste  your 
strength  doing  that.'' 

She  looked  up  from  her  task  with  a  smile. 

"I'm  not  going  to  let  you  get  slack  down 
here"  she  said. 

''But  those  things  will  look  just  as  bad 
again  five  minutes  after  I've  gone  down  the 
ladder." 

"But  I  don't  intend  they  shall  look  like  this 
on  your  way  to  the  ladder,"  she  answered. 

"All  right,"  I  said  "then  let  me  have  them. 
I'll  do  it  myself." 

"Have  you  shaved  ?"  she  asked. 


98  ONE  WAY  OUT 

I  rubbed  my  hand  over  my  chin.  It  wasn't 
very  bad  and  I'd  made  up  my  mind  I  wouldn't 
shave  every  day  now. 

"No,"  I  said.  "But  twice  or  three  times  a 
week—" 

"Billy!"  she  broke  in,  "that  will  never  do. 
You're  going  down  to  your  new  business  look- 
ing just  as  ship-shape  as  you  went  to  the  old. 
You  don't  belong  to  that  contractor;  you  be- 
long to  me." 

In  the  meanwhile  the  boy  came  in  with  my 
heavy  boots  which  he  had  brushed  clean  and 
oiled.  There  w^as  nothing  left  for  me  to  do 
but  to  shave  and  I'll  admit  I  felt  better  for. 
it. 

"Do  you  want  me  to  put  on  a  high  collar?'* 
I  asked. 

"Didn't  you  find  the  things  I  laid  out  for 
you?" 

I  hadn't  looked  about.  I'd  put  on  the  things 
I  took  off.  She  led  me  back  into  the  bed  room, 
and  over  a  chair  I  saw  a  clean  change  of  under- 
clothing and  a  new  grey  flannel  shirt. 

"Where  did  you  get  this?"  I  asked. 

"I  bought  it  for  a  dollar,"  she  answered. 
"It's  too  much  to  pay.  I  can  make  one  for 
fifty  cents  as  soon  as  I  get  time  to  sew." 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  99 

That's  the  way  Ruth  was.  Every  day  after 
this  she  made  me  change,  after  I  came  back 
from  my  swim,  into  the  business  suit  I  wore 
when  I  came  down  here,  and  which  now  by  con- 
trast looked  almost  new.  She  even  made  me 
wear  a  tie  with  my  flannel  shirt.  Every  morn- 
ing I  started  out  clean  shaven  and  with  my 
work  clothes  as  fresh  as  though  I  were  a  con- 
tractor myself.  I  objected  at  first  because  it 
seemed  too  much  for  her  to  do  to  wash  the 
things  every  day,  but  she  said  it  was  a  good  deal 
easier  than  washing  them  once  a  week.  In- 
cidentally that  was  one  of  her  own  little 
schemes  for  saving  trouble  and  it  seemed  to 
me  a  good  one ;  instead  of  collecting  her  soiled 
clothes  for  seven  days  and  then  tearing  her- 
self all  to  pieces  with  a  whole  hard  fore- 
noon's work,  she  washed  a  little  every  day. 
By  this  plan  it  took  her  only  about  an  hour 
each  morning  to  keep  all  the  linen  in  the  house 
clean  and  sweet.  We  had  the  roof  to  dry  it 
on  and  she  never  ironed  anything  except  per- 
haps the  tablecloths  and  handkerchiefs.  We 
had  no  company  to  cater  to  and  as  long  as  we 
knew  things  were  clean  that's  all  we  cared. 

We    got    around    the    rock    all    right.     It 
proved  not  to  be  a  ledge  after  all.     I  myself, 


100  ONE  WAY  OUT 

however,  didn't  accomplish  as  much  as  I  did  the 
first  day,  for  I  was  slower  in  my  movements. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  think  I  improved  a  little 
in  my  handling  of  the  crowbar.  At  the  noon 
hour  I  tried  to  start  a  conversation  with  An- 
ton,' but  he  understood  little  English  and  I 
knew  no  Italian,  so  we  didn't  get  far.  As  he 
sat  in  a  group  of  his  fellow  countrymen  laugh- 
ing and  jabbering  he  made  me  feel  distinctly 
like  an  outsider.  There  were  one  or  two  Eng- 
lish-speaking workmen  besides  myself,  but 
somehow  they  didn't  interest  me  as  much  as 
these  Italians.  It  may  have  been  my  imagina- 
tion but  they  seemed  to  me  a  decidedly  in- 
ferior lot.  As  a  rule  they  were  men  who  took 
the  job  only  to  keep  themselves  from  starving 
and  quit  at  the  end  of  a  week  or  two  only 
to  come  back  when  they  needed  more  money. 

I  must  make  an  exception  of  an  Irishman  I 
will  call  Dan  Rafiferty.  He  was  a  big  blue- 
eyed  fellow,  full  of  fun  and  fight,  with  a 
good  natured  contempt  of  the  Dagoes,  and 
was  a  born  leader.  I  noticed,  the  first  day, 
that  he  came  nearer  being  the  boss  of  the 
gang  than  the  foreman,  and  I  suspect  the 
latter  himself  noticed  it,  for  he  seemed  to 
have   it   in   for   Dan.     There   never   was   an 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  loi 

especially  dirty  job  to  be  done  but  what 
Dan  was  sent.  He  always  obeyed  but  he 
used  to  slouch  off  with  his  big  red  fist 
doubled  up,  muttering  curses  that  brought 
out  his  brogue  at  its  best.  Later  on  he  con- 
fided in  me  what  he  was  going  to  do  to  that 
boss.  If  he  had  carried  out  his  threats  he 
would  long  since  have  been  electrocuted  and 
I  would  have  lost  a  good  friend.  Several 
times  I  thought  the  two  men  were  coming  to 
blows  but  though  Dan  would  have  dearly 
loved  a  fight  and  could  have  handled  a  dozen 
men  like  the  foreman,  he  always  managed  to 
control  himself  in  time  to  avoid  it. 

"I  don't  wanter  be  after  losin'  me  job  for 
the  dirthy  spalpeen,"  he  growled  to  me. 

But  he  came  near  it  in  a  way  he  wasn't 
looking  for  later  in  the  week.  It  was  Friday 
and  half  a  dozen  of  us  had  been  sent  down  to 
work  on  the  second  level.  It  was  damp  and 
suffocating  down  there,  fifty  feet  below  the 
street.  I  felt  as  though  I  had  gone  into  the 
mines.  I  didn't  like  it  but  I  knew  that  there 
was  just  as  much  to  learn  here  as  above  and 
that  it  must  all  be  learned  eventually.  The 
sides  were  braced  with  heavy  timbers  like  a 
mine  shaft  to  prevent  the  dirt  from  falling  in 


102  ONE  WAY  OUT 

and  there  was  the  constant  danger  that  in 
spite  of  this  it  might  cave  in.  We  went  down 
by  rough  ladders  made  by  naihng  strips  of 
board  across  two  pieces  of  joist  and  the  work 
down  there  was  back-breaking  and  monoto- 
nous. We  heaved  the  dirt  into  a  big  iron 
bucket  lowered  by  the  hoisting  engine  above. 
It  was  heavy,  wet  soil  that  weighed  like  lead. 

From  the  beginning  the  men  complained 
of  headaches  and  one  by  one  they  crawled  up 
the  ladder  again  for  fresh  air.  Others  were 
sent  down  but  at  the  end  of  an  hour  they  too 
retreated.  Dan  and  I  stuck  it  out  for  a  while. 
Then  I  began  to  get  dizzy  myself.  I  didn't 
know  what  the  trouble  was  but  when  I  began 
to  wobble  a  bit  Dan  placed  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder. 

''Betther  climb  out  o'  here,"  he  said.  "I'm 
thinkin'  it's  gas." 

At  that  time  I  didn't  know  what  sewer  gas 
was.  I  couldn't  smell  anything  and  thought 
he  must  be  mistaken. 

"You'd  better  come  too,"  I  answered,  mak- 
ing for  the  ladder. 

He  wasn't  coming  but  I  couldn't  get  up 
very  well  without  him  so  he  followed  along 
behind.     At  the  top  we  found  the  foreman 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  103 

fighting  mad  and  trying  to  spur  on  another 
gang  to  go  down.  They  wouldn't  move. 
When  he  saw  us  come  up  he  turned  upon  Dan. 

"Who  ordered  you  out  of  there?"  he 
growled. 

"The  gas,"  answered  Dan. 

"Gas  be  damned,"  shouted  the  foreman. 
"You're  a  bunch  of  white  livered  cowards — 
all  of  you." 

I  saw  Dan  double  up  his  fists  and  start  to- 
wards the  man.  The  latter  checked  him  with 
a  command. 

"Go  back  down  there  or  you're  fired,"  he 
said  to  him. 

Dan  turned  red.  Then  I  saw  his  jaws  come 
together. 

"Begod!"  he  answered.  "You  shan't  fire 
me,  anyhow." 

Without  another  word  he  started  down  the 
ladder  again.  I  saw  the  Italians  crowd  to- 
gether and  watch  him.  By  that  time  my  head 
was  clearer  but  my  legs  were  weak.  I  sat 
down  a  moment  uncertain  what  to  do.  Then 
I  heard  someone  shout: 

"By  God,  he's  right!  He's  lying  there  at 
the  bottom." 

I  started  towards  the  ladder  but  some  one 


104  ONE  WAY  OUT 

shoved  me  back.  Then  I  thought  of  the 
bucket.  It  was  above  ground  and  I  staggered 
towards  it  gaining  strength  at  each  step.  I 
jumped  in  and  shouted  to  the  engineer  to  lower 
me.  He  obeyed  from  instinct.  I  went  down, 
down,  down  to  what  seemed  Hke  the  center  of 
the  earth.  When  the  bucket  struck  the 
ground  I  was  dizzy  again  but  I  managed  to 
get  out,  heave  the  unconscious  Dan  in  and 
pile  on  top  of  him  myself.  When  I  came  to, 
I  was  in  an  ambulance  on  my  way  to  the 
hospital  but  by  the  time  I  had  reached  the 
emergency  room  I  had  taken  a  grip  on  my- 
self. I  knew  that  if  ever  Ruth  heard  of  this 
she  would  never  again  be  comfortable.  When 
they  took  us  out  I  was  able  to  walk  a  little. 
The  doctors  wanted  to  put  me  to  bed  but  I 
refused  to  go.  I  sat  there  for  about  an  hour 
while  they  worked  over  Dan.  When  I  found 
that  he  would  be  all  right  by  morning  I  in- 
sisted upon  going  out.  I  had  a  bad  headache, 
but  I  knew  the  fresh  air  would  drive  this 
away  and  so  it  did,  though  it  left  me  weak. 

One  of  the  hardest  day's  work  I  ever  did 
in  my  life  was  killing  time  from  then  until 
five  o'clock.  Of  course  the  papers  got  hold 
of   it  and  that  gave  me  another   scare  but 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  105 

luckily  the  nearest  they  came  to  my  name  was 
Daiiinton,  so  no  harm  was  done.  And  they 
didn't  come  within  a  mile  of  getting  the  real 
story.  When  in  a  later  edition  one  of  them 
published  my  photograph  I  felt  absolutely  safe 
for  they  had  me  in  a  full  beard  and  thinner 
than  I've  ever  been  in  my  life. 

When  I  came  home  at  my  usual  time  look- 
ing a  bit  white  perhaps  but  otherwise  normal 
enough,  the  first  question  Ruth  asked  me 
was: 

"What  have  you  done  with  your  dinner  pail, 
Billy?" 

Isn't  a  man  always  sure  to  do  some  sucK 
fool  thing  as  that,  when  he's  trying  to  keep 
something  quiet  from  the  wife?  I  had  to  ex- 
plain that  I  had  forgotten  it  and  that  was 
enough  to  excite  suspicion  at  any  time.  She 
kept  me  uneasy  for  ten  minutes  and  the  best 
I  could  do  was  to  admit  finally  that  I  wasn't 
feeling  very  well.  Whereupon  she  made  me 
go  to  bed  and  fussed  over  me  all  the  even- 
ing and  worried  all  the  next  day. 

I  reported  for  work  as  usual  in  the  morn- 
ing and  found  we  had  a  new  foreman.  It 
was  a  relief  because  I  guess  if  Dan  hadn't 
knocked  down   the   other  one,   someone   else 


lo6  ONE  WAY  OUT 

would  have  done  it  sooner  or  later.  At  that 
the  man  had  taught  me  something  about 
sewer  gas  and  that  is  when  you  begin  to  feel 
dizzy  fifty  feet  below  the  street,  it's  time  to 
go  up  the  ladder  about  as  fast  as  your 
wobbly  legs  will  let  you,  even  if  you  don't 
smell  anything. 

Rafferty  didn't  turn  up  for  two  or  three 
days.  When  he  did  appear  it  was  with  a 
simple : 

"Mawnin,  mon." 

It  wasn't  until  several  days  later  I  learned 
that  the  late  foreman  had  left  town  nursing  a 
black  eye  and  a  cut  on  one  cheek  such  as 
might  have  been  made  by  a  set  of  red  knuckles 
backed  by  an  arm  the  size  of  a  small  ham. 

On  Saturday  night  of  that  first  week  I 
came  home  with  nine  dollars  in  my  pocket. 
I'll  never  be  prouder  again  than  I  was  when 
I  handed  them  over  to  Ruth.  And  Ruth  will 
never  again  be  prouder  than  she  was  when, 
after  she  had  laid  aside  three  of  them  for  the 
rent  and  five  for  current  expenses,  she  picked 
out  a  one-dollar  bill  and,  crossing  the  room, 
placed  it  in  the  ginger  jar.  This  was  a  little 
blue  affair  in  which  we  had  always  dropped 
what  pennies  and  nickels  we  could  spare. 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  107 

"  There's  our  nest-egg,"  she  announced. 

"You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  you're  that 
much  ahead  of  the  game  the  first  week?" 

"Look  here,  Billy,"  she  answered. 

She  brought  out  an  itemized  list  of  every- 
thing she  had  bought  from  last  Monday,  in- 
cluding Sunday's  dinner.  I've  kept  that  list. 
Many  of  the  things  she  had  bought  were  not 
yet  used  up  but  she  had  computed  the  cost  of 
the  amount  actually  used.  Here  it  is  as  I 
copied  it  off : 

Flour,  .25 

Lard,  .15 

Cream  of  tartar  and  soda,  .05 

Oat  meal,  .04 

Molasses,  .05 

Sugar,  .12 

Potatoes,  .20 

Rice,  .06 

Milk,  1. 12 

Eggs,  .24 

Rye  bread,  .10 

Sausages,  .22 

Lettuce,  .03 

Beans,  .12 

Salt  pork,  .15 


io8  ONE  WAY  OUT, 

Corn  meal,  ,06 

Graham  meal,  .05 

Butter,  .45 

Cheese,  .06 

Shin  of  beef,  .39 

Fish,  .22 

Oil,  .28 

Soap,  .09 

Vinegar,  salt  and  pepper,  about  .05 

Can  of  corn,  .07 

Onions,  .06 

Total  $4.68 

In  this  account,  too,  Ruth  was  liberal  in 
her  margins.  She  did  better  than  this  later 
on.  A  fairer  estimate  could  have  been  made 
at  the  end  of  the  month  and  a  still  fairer 
even  than  that,  at  the  end  of  the  year.  It 
sounded  almost  too  good  to  be  true  but  it  was 
a  fact.  We  had  lived,  and  lived  well  on  this 
amount  and  as  yet  Ruth  was  inexperienced. 
She  hadn't  learned  all  she  learned  later.  For 
the  benefit  of  those  who  may  think  we  went 
hungry  I  have  asked  Ruth  to  write  out  the 
bill  of  fare  for  this  week  as  nearly  as  she 
can  remember  it.  One  thing  you  must  keep 
in  mind   is   that  of  everything  we  had,   we 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  109 

had  enough.  Neither  Ruth,  the  boy,  nor 
myself  ever  left  the  table  or  dinner  pail  un- 
satisfied. Here's  what  we  had  and  it  was 
better  even  than  it  sounds  for  whatever  Ruth 
made,  she  made  well.  I  copy  it  as  she  wrote 
it  out. 

Monday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  griddle-cakes  with  mo- 
lasses, cream  of  tartar  biscuits,  milk. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  biscuits,  two  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  bowl  of  rice,  cold  coffee;  for  Dick 
and  me :  cold  biscuits,  milk,  rice. 

Dinner:  baked  potatoes,  griddle-cakes,  milk. 

Tuesday. 

Breakfast:  baked  potatoes,  graham  muffins, 
oatmeal,  milk. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  muffins,  two  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  rice,  milk;  for  Dick  and  me:  cold 
muffins,  rice  and  milk. 

Dinner:  boiled  potatoes,  pork  scraps,  hot 
biscuits,  milk. 

Wednesday. 
Breakfast:  oatmeal,  fried  potatoes,  warmed 
over  biscuits. 

Luncheon :  for  Billy :  cold  biscuits,  two  hard- 


no  ONE  WAY  OUT 

boiled  eggs,  bread  pudding:  for  Dick  and  me: 
baked  potatoes,  cold  biscuits,  bread  pudding. 

Dinner:  beef  stew  with  dumplings,  hot  bis- 
cuits, milk. 

Thursday. 

Breakfast:  fried  sausages,  baked  potatoes, 
graham  muffins,  milk. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  muffins,  cold  sau- 
sage and  rice;  for  Dick  and  me:  the  same. 

Dinner :  warmed  over  stew,  lettuce,  hot  bis- 
cuits, milk. 

Friday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  fried  rock  cod,  baked 
potatoes,  rye  bread,  milk. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  rye  bread,  potato 
salad,  rice;  for  Dick  and  me:  the  same. 

Dinner:  soup  made  from  stock  of  beef,  left 
over  fish,  boiled  potatoes,  rice,  milk. 

Saturday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  fried  corn  mush  with 
molasses,  milk. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  biscuits,  two  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  cheese,  rice;  for  Dick  and  me: 
German  toast. 

Dinner :  baked  beans,  hot  biscuits. 


NINE  DOLLARS  A  WEEK  in 

Sunday. 
Breakfast :  baked  beans,  graham  muffins. 
Dinner :  boiled  potatoes,  pork  scraps,  canned 
corn,  corn  cake,  bread  pudding. 

A  word  about  that  bread  pudding.  Ruth 
tells  me  she  puts  in  an  extra  quart  of  milk 
and  then  bakes  it  all  day  when  she  bakes 
her  beans,  stirring  it  every  now  and  then.  I 
never  knew  before  how  the  trick  was  done 
but  it  comes  out  a  rich  brown  and  tastes  like 
plum  pudding  without  the  raisins.  She  says 
that  if  you  put  in  raisins  it  tastes  exactly  like 
a  plum  pudding. 

So  at  the  end  of  the  first  week  I  found  my- 
self with  eighty  dollars  left  over  from  the  old 
home,  one  dollar  saved  in  the  new,  all  my  bills 
paid,  and  Ruth,  Dick  and  myself  all  fit  as  a 
fiddle. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SUNDAY 

That  first  dollar  saved  was  the  germ  of  a 
new  idea. 

It  is  a  further  confession  of  a  middle-class 
mind  that  in  coming  down  here  I  had  not 
looked  forward  beyond  the  immediate  present. 
With  the  horror  of  that  last  week  still  on  me 
I  had  considered  only  the  opportunity  I  had  for 
earning  a  livelihood.  To  be  sure  I  had  seen 
no  reason  why  an  intelligent  man  should  not 
in  time  be  advanced  to  foreman,  and  why  he 
should  not  then  be  able  to  save  enough  to  ward 
off  the  poorhouse  before  old  age  came  on. 
But  now — with  that  first  dollar  tucked  away 
in  the  ginger  jar — I  felt  within  me  the  stir- 
ring of  a  new  ambition,  an  ambition  born  of 
this  quick  young  country  into  which  I  had 
plunged.  Why,  in  time,  should  I  not  become 
the  employer?  Why  should  I  not  take  the  ini- 
tiative in  some  of  these  progressive  enter- 
prises?    Why  should  I  not  learn  this  business 

112 


SUNDAY  113 

of  contracting  and  building  and  some  day  con- 
tract and  build  for  myself?  With  that  first 
dollar  saved  I  was  already  at  heart  a  capitalist. 

I  said  nothing  of  this  to  Ruth.  For  six 
months  I  let  the  idea  grow.  If  it  did  noth- 
ing else  it  added  zest  to  my  new  work.  I 
shoveled  as  though  I  were  digging  for  dia- 
monds. It  made  me  a  young  man  again.  It 
made  me  a  young  American  again.  It 
brought  me  out  of  bed  every  morning  with 
visions;  it  sent  me  to  sleep  at  night  with 
dreams. 

But  Fm  running  ahead  of  my  story. 

I  thought  I  had  appreciated  Sunday  when 
it  meant  a  release  for  one  day  from  the  office 
of  the  United  Woollen,  but  as  with  all  the  other 
things  I  felt  as  though  it  had  been  but  the 
shadow  and  that  only  now  had  I  found  the 
substance.  In  the  first  place  I  had  not  been 
able  completely  to  shake  the  office  in  the  last 
few  years.  I  brought  it  home  with  me  and 
on  Sundays  it  furnished  half  the  subject  of 
conversation.  Every  little  incident,  every  bit 
of  conversation,  every  expression  on  Morse's 
face  was  analyzed  in  the  attempt  to  see  what 
it  counted,  for  or  against,  the  possible  future 
raise.     Even  when  out  walking  with  the  boy 


114  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  latter  was  a  constant  reminder.  It  was  as 
though  he  were  merely  a  ward  of  the  United 
Woollen  Company. 

But  when  I  put  away  my  shovel  at  five  o'- 
clock on  Saturday  that  was  the  end  of  my  ditch 
digging.  I  came  home  after  that  and  I  was  at 
home  until  I  reported  for  work  on  Monday 
morning.  There  was  neither  work  nor  worry 
left  hanging  over.  It  meant  complete  relax- 
ation— complete  rest.  And  the  body,  I  found, 
rests  better  than  the  mind. 

Later  in  my  work  I  didn't  experience  this  so 
perfectly  as  I  now  did  because  then  I  accepted 
new  responsibilities,  but  for  the  first  few 
months  I  lived  in  lazy  content  on  this  one  day. 
For  the  most  part  those  who  lived  around  me 
did  all  the  time.  On  fair  summer  days  half 
the  population  of  the  little  square  basked  in 
the  sun  with  eyes  half  closed  from  morning 
until  night.  Those  who  didn't,  went  to  the 
neighboring  beaches  many  of  which  they 
could  reach  for  a  nickel  or  visited  such  public 
buildings  as  were  open.  But  wherever  they 
went  or  whatever  they  did,  they  loafed  about 
it.  And  a  man  can't  truly  loaf  until  he's  done 
a  hard  week's  work  which  ends  with  the  week. 

As  for  us  we  had  our  choice  of  any  num- 


SUNDAY  115 

ber  of  pleasant  occupations.  I  insisted  that 
Ruth  should  make  the  meals  as  simple  as  possi- 
ble on  that  day  and  both  the  boy  and  myself 
helped  her  about  them.  We  always  washed 
the  dishes  and  swept  the  floor.  First  of  all 
there  was  the  roof.  I  early  saw  the  possibility 
of  this  much  neglected  spot.  It  was  flat  and 
had  a  fence  around  it  for  it  was  meant  to  be 
used  for  the  hanging  out  of  clothes.  Being 
a  new  building  it  had  been  built  a  story 
higher  than  its  older  neighbors  so  that  we 
overlooked  the  other  roofs.  There  was  a 
generous  space  through  which  we  saw  the 
harbor.  I  picked  up  a  strip  of  old  canvas  for 
a  trifle  in  one  of  the  shore-front  junk-shops 
which  deal  in  second-hand  ship  supplies  and 
arranged  it  over  one  corner  like  a  canopy. 
Then  I  brought  home  with  me  some  bits  of 
board  that  were  left  over  from  the  wood  con- 
struction at  the  ditch  and  nailed  these  together 
to  make  a  rude  sort  of  window  box.  It  was 
harder  to  get  dirt  than  it  was  wood  but  little 
by  little  I  brought  home  enough  finally  to 
fill  the  boxes.  In  these  we  planted  radishes 
and  lettuce  and  a  few  flower  seeds.  We 
had  almost  as  good  a  garden  as  we  used 
to  have  in  our  back  yard.     At  any  rate  it 


Ii6  ONE  WAY  OUT 

was  just  as  much  fun  to  watch  the  things 
grow,  and  though  the  lettuce  never  amounted 
to  much  we  actually  raised  some  very  good  rad- 
ishes.    The  flowers  did  well,  too. 

We  brought  up  an  old  blanket  and  spread 
it  out  beneath  the  canopy  and  that,  with  a 
chair  or  two,  made  our  roof  garden.  A 
local  branch  of  the  Public  Library  was  not 
far  distant  so  that  we  had  all  the  reading 
matter  we  wanted  and  here  we  used  to  sit  all 
day  Sunday  when  we  didn't  feel  like  doing 
anything  else.  Here,  too,  w^e  used  to  sit  even- 
ings. On  several  hot  nights  Ruth,  the  boy  and 
I  brought  up  our  blankets  and  slept  out. 
The  boy  liked  it  so  well  that  finally  he  came 
to  sleep  up  here  most  of  the  summer.  It  was 
fine  for  him.  The  harbor  breeze  swept  the 
air  clean  of  smoke  so  that  it  was  as  good  for 
him  as  being  at  the  sea-shore. 

To  us  the  sights  from  this  roof  were  marvel- 
ous. They  appealed  strongly  because  they 
were  unlike  anything  w^e  had  ever  seen  or  for 
that  matter  unlike  anything  our  friends  had 
ever  seen.  I  think  that  a  man's  friends  often 
take  away  the  freshness  from  sights  that  other- 
wise might  move  him.  I've  never  been  to 
Europe  but  what  with  magazine  pictures  and 


SUNDAY  117 

snap  shots  and  Mrs.  Grover,  who  never  for- 
got that  before  she  married  Grover  she  had 
travelled  for  a  whole  year,  I  haven't  any 
special  desire  to  visit  London  or  Paris.  I 
suppose  it  would  be  different  if  I  ever  went 
but  even  then  I  don't  think  there  would  be  the 
novelty  to  it  we  found  from  our  roof.  And  it 
was  just  that  novelty  and  the  ability  to  ap- 
preciate it  that  made  our  whole  emigrant  life 
possible.  It  was  for  us  the  Great  Adven- 
ture again.  I  suppose  there  are  men  who  will 
growl  that  it's  all  bosh  to  say  there  is  any 
real  romance  in  living  in  four  rooms  in  a 
tenement  district,  eating  what  we  ate,  dig- 
ging in  a  ditch  and  mooning  over  a  view  from 
a  roof  top.  I  want  to  say  right  here  that  for 
such  men  there  wouldn't  be  any  romance  or 
beauty  in  such  a  life.  They'd  be  miserable. 
There  are  plenty  of  men  living  down  there  now 
and  they  never  miss  a  chance  to  air  their  opin- 
ions. Some  of  them  have  big  bodies  but  I 
wouldn't  give  them  fifty  cents  a  day  to  work 
for  me.  Luckily  however,  there  are  not  many 
of  them  in  proportion  to  the  others,  even 
though  they  make  more  noise. 

But  when  you  stop  to  think  about  it  what  else 
is  it  but  romance  that  leads  men  to  spend  their 


Ii8  ONE  WAY  OUT 

lives  fishing  oil  the  Banks  when  they  could 
remain  safely  ashore  and  get  better  pay  driv- 
ing a  team?  Or  what  drives  them  into  the 
army  or  to  work  on  railroads  when  they 
neither  expect  nor  hope  to  be  advanced? 
The  men  themselves  can't  tell  you.  They  take 
up  the  work  unthinkingly  but  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  very  hardships  they  suffer  which 
lends  a  sting  to  the  life  and  holds  them.  The 
only  thing  I  know  of  that  will  do  this  and  turn 
the  grind  into  an  inspiration  is  romance.  It's 
what  the  new-comers  have  and  it's  what  our 
ancestors  had  and  it's  what  a  lot  of  us  who 
have  stayed  over  here  too  long  out  of  the  cur- 
rent have  lost. 

On  the  lazy  summer  mornings  we  could 
hear  the  church  bells  and  now  and  then  a  set 
of  chimes.  Because  we  were  above  the  street 
and  next  to  the  sky  they  sounded  as  drowsily 
musical  as  in  a  country  village.  They  made  me 
a  bit  conscience-stricken  to  think  that  for  the 
boy's  sake  I  didn't  make  an  efifort  and  go  to 
some  church.  But  for  a  while  it  was  church 
enough  to  devote  the  seventh  day  to  what 
the  Bible  says  it  was  made  for.  Ruth  used 
to  read  out  loud  to  us  and  we  planned  to 


SUNDAY  119 

make  our  book  suit  the  day  after  a  fashion. 
Sometimes  it  was  Emerson,  sometimes  Tenny- 
son— I  was  very  fond  of  the  Idylls — and  some- 
times a  book  of  sermons.  Later  on  we  had  a 
call  from  a  young  minister  who  had  a  little 
mission  chapel  not  far  from  our  flat  and  who 
looked  in  upon  us  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
secretary  of  the  settlement  house.  We  went 
to  a  service  at  his  chapel  one  Sunday  and  be- 
fore we  ourselves  realized  it  we  were  attend- 
ing regularly  with  a  zest  and  interest  which 
we  had  never  felt  in  our  suburban  church-go- 
ing. Later  still  we  each  of  us  found  a  share 
in  the  work  ourselves  and  came  to  have  a 
great  satisfaction  and  contentment  in  it.  But 
I  am  running  ahead  of  my  story. 

We'd  have  dinner  this  first  summer  at  about 
half  past  one  and  then  perhaps  we'd  go  for 
a  walk.  There  wasn't  a  street  in  the  city 
that  didn't  interest  us  but  as  a  rule  we'd 
plan  to  visit  one  of  the  parks.  I  didn't  know 
there  were  so  many  of  them  or  that  they 
were  so  different.  We  had  our  choice  of  the 
ocean  or  a  river  or  the  woods.  If  we  had 
wished  to  spend  say  thirty  cents  in  car  fare 
we  could  have  had  a  further  choice  of  the 


120  ONE  WAY  OUT 

beach,  the  mountains,  or  a  taste  of  the  country 
\vhich  in  places  had  not  changed  in  the  last 
hundred  years.  This  would  have  given  us  a 
two  hours'  ride.  Occasionally  we  did  this  but 
at  present  there  was  too  much  to  see  within 
walking  distance. 

For  one  thing  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me 
that  though  I  had  lived  in  this  city  over  thirty 
years  I  had  not  yet  seen  such  places  of  inter- 
est as  always  attracted  visitors  from  out  of 
town.  My  attention  was  brought  to  this  first 
by  the  need  of  limiting  ourselves  to  amuse- 
ments that  didn't  cost  anything,  but  chiefly 
by  learning  where  the  better  element  down 
here  spent  their  Sundays.  You  have  only  to 
follow  this  crowd  to  find  out  where  the  objects 
of  national  pride  are  located.  An  old  battle 
flag  will  attract  twenty  foreigners  to  one 
American.  And  incidentally  I  wish  to  confess 
it  was  they  who  made  me  ashamed  of  my 
ignorance  of  the  country's  history.  Beyond 
a  memory  of  the  Revolution,  the  Civil  War 
and  a  few  names  of  men  and  battles  connected 
therewith,  I'd  forgotten  all  I  ever  learned  at 
school  on  this  subject.  But  here  the  many 
patriotic  celebrations  arranged  by  the  local 
schools  in  the  endeavor  to  instill  patriotism  and 


SUNDAY  121 

the  frequent  visits  of  the  boys  to  the  museums, 
kept  the  subject  fresh.  Not  only  Dick  but 
Ruth  and  myself  soon  turned  to  it  as  a  vital  part 
of  our  education.  Inspired  by  the  old  trophies 
that  ought  to  stand  for  so  much  to  us  of  to-day 
we  took  from  the  library  the  first  volume  of 
Fiske's  fine  series  and  in  the  course  of  time 
read  them  all.  As  we  traced  the  fortunes  of 
those  early  adventurers  who  dreamed  and 
sailed  towards  an  unknown  continent,  pictured 
to  ourselves  the  lives  of  the  tribes  who 
wandered  about  in  the  big  tangle  of  forest 
growth  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific, 
as  we  landed  on  the  bleak  New  England 
shores  with  the  early  Pilgrims,  then  fought 
with  Washington,  then  studied  the  perilous 
internal  struggle  culminating  with  Lincoln 
and  the  Civil  War,  then  the  dangerous  period 
of  reconstruction  with  the  breathless  progress 
following — why  it  left  us  all  better  Americans 
than  we  had  ever  been  in  our  lives.  It  gave 
new  meaning  to  my  present  surroundings  and 
helped  me  better  to  understand  the  new- 
comers. Somehow  all  those  things  of  the  past 
didn't  seem  to  concern  Grover  and  the  rest  of 
them  in  the  trim  little  houses.  They  had  no 
history  and  they  were  a  part  of  no  history. 


122  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Perhaps  that's  because  they  were  making  no 
history  themselves.  As  for  myself,  I  know 
that  I  was  just  beginning  to  get  acquainted 
with  my  ancestors — that  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life,  I  was  really  conscious  of  being  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

But  I  soon  discovered  that  not  only  the 
historic  but  the  beautiful  attracted  these  peo- 
ple. They  introduced  me  to  the  Art  Mu- 
seum. In  the  winter  following  our  first 
summer  here,  when  the  out  of  door  attrac- 
tions were  considerably  narrowed  down,  Ruth 
and  I  used  to  go  there  about  every  other 
Sunday  with  the  boy.  We  came  to  feel  as 
familiar  with  our  favorite  pictures  as  though 
they  hung  in  our  own  house.  The  Museum 
ceased  to  be  a  public  building;  it  was  our  own. 
We  went  in  with  a  nod  to  the  old  doorkeeper 
who  came  to  know  us  and  felt  as  unconstrained 
there  as  at  home.  We  had  our  favorite  nooks, 
our  favorite  seats  and  we  lounged  about  in 
the  soft  lights  of  the  rooms  for  hours  at  a 
time.  The  more  we  looked  at  the  beautiful 
paintings,  the  old  tapestries,  the  treasures  of 
stone  and  china,  the  more  we  enjoyed  them. 
We  were  sure  to  meet  some  of  our  neighbors 
there  and  a  young  artist  who  lived  on  the  sec- 


SUNDAY  123 

ond  floor  of  our  house  and  whom  later  I  came 
to  know  very  well,  pointed  out  to  us  new  beau- 
ties in  the  old  masters.  He  was  selling  plaster 
casts  at  that  time  and  studying  art  in  the 
night  school. 

In  the  old  life,  an  art  museum  had  meant 
nothing  to  me  more  than  that  it  seemed  a  nec- 
essary institution  in  every  city.  It  was  a  mark 
of  good  breeding  in  a  town,  like  the  library  in  a 
good  many  homes.  But  it  had  never  occurred 
to  me  to  visit  it  and  I  know  it  hadn't  to  any  of 
my  former  associates.  The  women  occasion- 
ally went  to  a  special  exhibition  that  was  likely 
to  be  discussed  at  the  little  dinners,  but  a  week 
later  they  couldn't  have  told  you  what  they  had 
seen.  Perhaps  our  neighborhood  was  the  ex- 
ception and  a  bit  more  ignorant  than  the  aver- 
age about  such  things,  but  I'll  venture  to  say 
there  isn't  a  middle-class  community  in  this 
country  where  the  paintings  play  the  part  in 
the  lives  of  the  people  that  they  do  among 
the  foreign-born.  A  class  better  than  they 
does  the  work;  a  class  lower  enjoys  it.  Where 
the  middle-class  comes  in,  I  don't  know. 

After  being  gone  all  the  afternoon  we'd  be 
glad  to  get  home  again  and  maybe  we'd  have 
a  lunch  of  cold  beans  and  biscuits  or  some  of 


124  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  pudding  that  was  left  over.  Then  during 
the  summer  months  we'd  go  back  to  the  roof 
for  a  restful  evening.  At  night  the  view  was 
as  different  from  the  day  as  you  could  imagine. 
Behind  us  the  city  proper  was  in  a  bluish  haze 
made  by  the  electric  lights.  Then  we  could 
see  the  yellow  lights  of  the  upper  windows  in 
all  the  neighboring  houses  and  beyond  these, 
over  the  roof  tops  which  seemed  now  to  huddle 
closer  together,  we  saw  the  passing  red  and 
green  lights  of  moving  vessels.  Overhead 
were  the  same  clean  stars  which  were  at  the 
same  time  shining  down  upon  the  woods  and 
the  mountain  tops.  There  was  something 
about  it  that  made  me  feel  a  man  and  a  free 
man.  There  was  twenty  years  of  slavery 
back  of  me  to  make  me  appreciate  this. 

And  Ruth  reading  my  thoughts  in  my  eyes 
used  to  nestle  closer  to  me  and  the  boy  with 
his  chin  in  his  hands  would  stare  out  at  sea 
and  dream  his  own  dreams. 


CHAPTER  IX 

PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE 

As  I  said,  with  that  first  dollar  in  the  ginger 
jar  representing  the  first  actual  saving  I  had 
ever  effected  in  my  whole  life,  my  imagina- 
tion became  fired  with  new  plans.  I  saw  no 
reason  why  I  myself  should  not  become  an 
employer.  As  in  the  next  few  weeks  I  en- 
larged my  circle  of  acquaintances  and  pushed 
my  inquiries  in  every  possible  direction  I 
found  this  idea  was  in  the  air  down  here. 
The  ambition  of  all  these  people  was  towards 
complete  independence.  Either  they  hoped  to 
set  up  in  business  for  themselves  in  this 
country  or  they  looked  forward  to  saving 
enough  to  return  to  the  land  of  their  birth  and 
live  there  as  small  land  owners.  I  speak  more 
especially  of  the  Italians  because  just  now  I 
was  thrown  more  in  contact  with  them  than 
the  others.  In  my  city  they,  with  the  Irish, 
seemed  peculiarly  of  real  emigrant  stuff. 
The  Jews  were  so  clannish  that  they  were  a 

125 


ij6  one  way  out 

problem  in  themselves;  the  Germans  assimi- 
lated a  little  better  and  yet  they  too  were  like 
one  large  family.  They  did  not  get  into  the 
city  life  very  much  and  even  in  their  business 
stuck  pretty  closely  to  one  line.  For  a  good 
many  years  they  remained  essentially  Germans. 
But  the  Irish  were  citizens  from  the  time  they 
landed  and  the  Italians  eventually  became  such 
if  by  a  slower  process. 

The  former  went  into  everything.  They 
are  a  tremendously  adaptable  people.  But 
whatever  they  tackled  they  looked  forward  to 
independence  and  generally  won  it.  Even  a 
man  of  so  humble  an  ambition  as  Murphy  had 
accomplished  this.  The  Italians  either  went 
into  the  fruit  business  for  which  they  seem 
to  have  a  knack  or  served  as  day  laborers 
and  saved.  There  was  a  man  down  here 
who  was  always  ready  to  stake  them  to  a 
cart  and  a  supply  of  fruit,  at  an  exorbitant 
price  to  be  sure,  but  they  pushed  their  carts 
patiently  mile  upon  mile  until  in  the  end  they 
saved  enough  to  buy  one  of  their  own.  The 
next  step  was  a  small  fruit  store.  The 
laborers,  once  they  had  acquired  a  work- 
ing capital,  took  up  many  things — a  lot  of 
them  going  into  the  country  and  buying  de- 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    127 

serted  farms.  It  was  wonderful  what  they 
did  with  this  land  upon  which  the  old  stock 
New  Englander  had  not  been  able  to  live. 
But  of  course  in  part  explanation  of  this,  you 
must  remember  that  these  New  England  vil- 
lages have  long  been  drained  of  their  best.  In 
many  cases  only  the  maim,  the  halt,  and  the 
blind  are  left  and  these  stand  no  more  chance 
against  the  modern  pioneer  than  they  would 
against  one  of  their  own  sturdy  forefathers. 

Another  occupation  which  the  Italians 
seemed  to  preempt  was  the  boot-blacking  busi- 
ness. It  may  seem  odd  to  dignify  so  menial  an 
employment  as  a  business  but  there  is  many  a 
head  of  such  an  establishment  who  could  show 
a  fatter  bank  account  than  two-thirds  of  his 
clients.  The  next  time  you  go  into  a  little 
nook  containing  say  fifteen  chairs,  figure  out 
for  yourself  how  many  nickels  are  left  there 
in  a  day.  The  rent  is  often  high — it  is 
some  proof  of  a  business  worth  thought  when 
you  consider  that  they  are  able  to  pay  for  po- 
sitions on  the  leading  business  streets — ^but  the 
labor  is  cheap  and  the  furnishings  and  cost 
of  raw  material  slight.  Pasquale  had  set 
me  to  thinking  long  before,  when  I  learned 
that  he  was  earning  almost  as  much  a  week  as 


uS  ONE  WAY  OUT 

I.  It  is  no  imiisiinl  thing  for  a  man  who  owns 
his  ''emporium"  to  draw  ten  dollars  a  day  in 
profits  and  not  show  himself  until  he  empties 
the  cash  register  at  night. 

But  the  fact  that  impressed  me  in  these 
people — and  this  holds  peculiarly  true  of  the 
Jews — was  that  they  all  shied  away  from  the 
salaried  jobs.  In  making  such  general- 
izations I  may  be  running  a  risk  because  I'm 
only  giving  the  results  of  my  own  limited  ob- 
servation and  experience.  But  I  want  it  un- 
derstood that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  these  recollections  I'm  trying  to  do  nothing 
more.  I'm  not  a  student.  I'm  not  a  sociolo- 
gist. The  conditions  which  I  observed  may 
not  hold  elsewhere  for  all  I  know.  From  a 
different  point  of  view,  they  might  not  to  an- 
other seem  to  hold  even  in  my  own  city.  I 
won't  argue  with  anyone  about  it.  I  set  down 
what  I  myself  saw  and  let  it  go  at  that. 

Going  back  to  the  small  group  among  whom 
I  lived  when  I  was  with  the  United  Woollen, 
it  seems  to  me  that  every  man  clung  to 
a  salary  as  though  it  were  his  only  possible 
hope.  I  know  men  among  them  who  even  re- 
fused to  work  on  a  commission  basis  although 
they  were  practically  sure  of  earning  in  this 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    129 

way  double  what  they  were  being  paid  by  the 
year.  They  considered  a  salary  as  a  form  of 
insurance  and  once  in  the  grip  of  this  idea 
they  had  nothing  to  look  forward  to  except  an 
increase.  I  was  no  better  myself.  I  didn't 
really  expect  to  be  head  of  the  firm.  Nor  did 
the  other  men.  We  weren't  working  and 
holding  on  with  any  notion  of  winning  inde- 
pendence along  that  line.  The  most  we  hoped 
for  was  a  bigger  salary.  Some  men  didn't  an- 
ticipate more  than  twenty-five  hundred  like 
me,  and  others — the  younger  men — talked 
about  five  thousand  and  even  ten  thousand.  I 
didn't  hear  them  discuss  what  thej  were  go- 
ing to  do  when  they  were  general  managers  or 
vice-presidents  but  always  what  they  could 
enjoy  when  they  drew  the  larger  annuity. 
And  save  those  who  saw  in  professional  work 
a  way  out,  this  was  the  career  they  were 
choosing  for  their  sons.  They  wanted  to  get 
them  into  banks  and  the  big  companies  where 
the  assurance  of  lazy  routine  advancement  up 
to  a  certain  point  was  the  reward  for  industry, 
sobriety  and  honesty.  A  salary  with  an  old, 
strongly  established  company  semed  to  them 
about  as  big  a  stroke  of  luck  for  a  young  man 
as  a  legacy.     I  myself  had  hoped  to  find  a 


130  ONE  WAY  OUT 

place  for  Dick  with  one  of  the  big  trust  com- 
panies. 

Of  course  down  here  these  people  did  not 
have  the  same  opportunities.  Most  of  the  old 
firms  preferred  the  ''bright  young  American" 
and  I  guess  they  secured  most  of  them.  I  pity 
the  "bright  young  American"  but  I  can't  help 
congratulating  the  bright  young  Italians  and 
the  bright  young  Irishmen.  They  are  forced 
as  a  result  to  make  business  for  themselves 
and  they  are  given  every  opportunity  in  the 
world  for  doing  it.  And  they  are  doing  it. 
And  I,  breathing  in  this  atmosphere,  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  would  do  it,  too. 

With  this  in  mind  I  outlined  for  myself  a 
systematic  course  of  procedure.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  in  this  as  in  any  other  business  I 
must  master  thoroughly  the  details  before 
taking  up  the  larger  problems.  The  details  of 
this  as  of  any  other  business  lay  at  the  bottom 
and  so  for  these  at  least  I  was  at  present  in  the 
best  possible  position.  The  two  most  impor- 
tant factors  to  the  success  of  a  contractor 
seemed  to  me  to  be,  roughly  speaking,  the  se- 
curing and  handling  of  men  and  the  purchase 
and  use  of  materials.  Of  the  two,  the  former 
appeared   to   be   the   more   important.     Even 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE 


131 


in  the  few  weeks  I  had  been  at  work  here  I 
had  observed  a  big  difference  in  the  amount  of 
labor  accompHshed  by  different  men  individ- 
ually. I  could  have  picked  out  a  half  dozen 
that  were  worth  more  than  all  the  others  put 
together.  And  in  the  two  foremen  I  had  no- 
ticed another  big  difference  in  the  varying  ca- 
pacity of  a  boss  to  get  work  out  of  the  men 
collectively.  In  work  where  labor  counted  for 
so  much  in  the  final  cost  as  here,  it  appeared  as 
though  this  involved  almost  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  profit  and  loss.  With  a  hundred  men 
employed  at  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  the  sav- 
ing of  a  single  hour  meant  the  saving  of  a 
good  many  dollars. 

It  may  seem  odd  that  so  obvious  a  fact  was 
not  taken  advantage  of  by  the  present  con- 
tractors. Doubtless  it  was  realized  but  my 
later  experience  showed  me  that  the  obvious  is 
very  often  neglected.  In  this  business  as  in 
many  others,  the  details  fall  into  a  rut  and 
often  a  newcomer  with  a  fresh  point  of  view 
will  detect  waste  that  has  been  going  on  unno- 
ticed for  years.  I  was  almost  forty  years  old, 
fairly  intelligent,  and  I  had  everything  at  stake. 
So  I  was  distinctly  more  alert  than  those  who 
retained  their  positions  merely  by  letting  things 


n,2 


ONE  WAY  OUT 


run  along  as  well  as  they  always  had  been  go- 
ing. But  however  you  may  explain  it,  I  knew 
that  the  foreman  didn't  get  as  much  work  out 
of  me  as  he  might  have  done.  In  spite  of  all 
the  control  I  exercised  over  myself  I  often  quit 
work  realizing  that  half  my  strength  during 
the  day  had  gone  for  nothing.  And  though  it 
may  sound  like  boasting  to  say  it,  I  think  I 
worked  both  more  conscientiously  and  intel- 
ligently than  most  of  the  men. 

In  the  first  place  the  foreman  was  a  bully. 
He  believed  in  driving  his  men.  He  swore  at 
them  and  goaded  them  as  an  ignorant  coun- 
tryman often  tries  to  drive  oxen.  The  result 
was  a  good  deal  the  same  as  it  is  with  oxen — 
the  men  worked  excitedly  when  under  the  sting 
and  loafed  the  rest  of  the  time.  In  a  crisis  the 
boss  was  able  to  spur  them  on  to  their  best — 
though  even  then  they  wasted  strength  in 
frantic  endeavor — but  he  could  not  keep  them 
up  to  a  consistent  level  of  steady  work.  And 
that's  what  counts.  As  in  a  Marathon  race 
the  men  who  maintain  a  steady  plugging  pace 
from  start  to  finish  are  the  ones  who  accom- 
plish. 

The  question  may  be  asked  how  such  a  boss 
could  keep  his  job.     I  myself  did  not  under- 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    133 

stand  that  at  first  but  later  as  I  worked  with 
different  men  and  under  different  bosses  I  saw 
that  it  was  because  their  methods  were  much 
ahke  and  that  the  results  were  much  alike.  A 
certain  standard  had  been  established  as  to 
the  amount  of  work  that  should  be  done  by  a 
hundred  men  and  this  was  maintained.  The 
boss  had  figured  out  loosely  how  much  the  men 
would  work  and  the  men  had  figured  out  to 
a  minute  how  much  they  could  loaf.  Neither 
man  nor  boss  took  any  special  interest  in  the 
work  itself.  The  men  were  allowed  to  waste 
just  so  much  time  in  getting  water,  in  filling 
their  pipes,  in  spitting  on  their  hands,  in  rest- 
ing on  their  shovels,  in  lazy  chatter,  and  so 
long  as  they  did  not  exceed  this  nothing  wasi 
said. 

The  trouble  was  that  the  standard  was  low 
and  this  was  because  the  men  had  nothing  to 
gain  by  steady  conscientious  work  and  also  be- 
cause the  boss  did  not  understand  them  nor  dis- 
tinguish between  them.  For  instance  the  fore- 
man ought  to  have  got  the  work  of  two  men 
out  of  me  but  he  wouldn't  have,  if  I  hadn't 
chosen  to  give  it.  That  held  true  also  of  Raf- 
ferty  and  one  or  two  others. 

Now  my  idea  was  this :  that  if  a  man  made  a 


134  ONE  WAY  OUT 

study  of  these  men  who,  in  this  city  at  any  rate, 
were  the  key  to  the  contractor's  problem,  and 
learned  their  little  peculiarities,  their  stand- 
ards of  justice,  their  ambitions,  their  weakness 
and  their  strength,  he  ought  to  be  able  to  in- 
crease their  working  capacity.  Certainly  an 
intelligent  teamster  does  this  with  horses  and 
it  seemed  as  though  it  ought  to  be  possible  to 
accomplish  still  finer  results  with  men.  To  go 
a  little  farther  in  my  ambition,  it  also  seemed 
possible  to  pick  and  select  the  best  of  these  men 
instead  of  taking  them  at  random.  For  in- 
stance in  the  present  gang  there  were  at  least 
a  half  dozen  who  stood  out  as  more  intelligent 
and  stronger  physically  than  all  the  others. 
Why  couldn't  a  man  in  time  gather  about  him 
say  a  hundred  such  men  and  by  better  treat- 
ment, possibly  better  pay,  possibly  a  guaran- 
tee of  continuous  work,  make  of  them  a  loyal, 
hard  working  machine  with  a  capacity  for 
double  the  work  of  the  ordinary  gang?  Such 
organization  as  this  was  going  on  in  other 
lines  of  business,  why  not  in  this?  With  such 
a  machine  at  his  command,  a  man  ought  to 
make  himself  a  formidable  competitor  with 
even  the  long  established  firms. 

At  any  rate  this  was  my  theory  and  it  gave 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    135 

a  fresh  inspiration  to  my  work.  Whether  any- 
thing came  of  it  or  not  it  was  something  to 
hope  for,  something  to  toil  for,  something 
which  raised  this  digging  to  the  plane  of  the 
pioneer  who  joyfully  clears  his  field  of  stumps 
and  rocks.  It  swung  me  from  the  present  into 
the  future.  It  was  a  different  future  from 
that  which  had  weighed  me  down  when  with 
the  United  Woollen.  This  was  no  waiting 
game.  Neither  your  pioneer  nor  your  true 
emigrant  sits  down  and  waits.  Here  was 
something  which  depended  solely  upon  my  own 
efforts  for  its  success  or  failure.  And  I  knew 
that  it  wasn't  possible  to  fail  so  dismally  but 
what  the  joy  of  the  struggle  would  always  be 
mine. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  carried  with  me 
to  my  work  a  note  book  and  during  the 
noon  hour  I  set  down  everything  which  I 
thought  might  be  of  any  possible  use  to  me. 
I  missed  no  opportunity  for  learning  even  the 
most  trivial  details.  A  great  deal  of  the  in- 
formation was  superficial  and  a  great  deal  of 
it  was  incorrect  but  down  it  went  in  the  note 
book  to  be  revised  later  when  I  became  better 
informed. 

I  watched  my  fellow  workmen  as  much  as 


136  ONE  WAY  OUT 

possible  and  plied  them  with  questions.  I 
wanted  to  know  where  the  cement  came  from 
and  in  what  proportion  it  was  mixed  with  sand 
and  gravel  and  stone  for  different  work.  I 
wanted  to  know  where  the  sand  and  gravel 
and  stone  came  from  and  how  it  was  graded. 
Wherever  it  was  possible  I  secured  rough 
prices  for  different  materials.  I  wanted  to 
know  where  the  lumber  was  bought  and  I 
wanted  to  know  how  the  staging  was  built  and 
why  it  was  built.  Understand  that  I  did  not 
flatter  myself  that  I  was  fast  becoming  a 
mason,  a  carpenter,  an  engineer  and  a  con- 
tractor all  in  one  and  all  at  once.  I  knew  that 
the  most  of  my  information  was  vague  and 
loose.  Half  the  men  who  w^ere  doing  the  work 
didn't  know  why  they  were  doing  it  and  a  lot 
of  them  didn't  know  how  they  were  doing  it. 
They  worked  by  instinct  and  habit.  Then, 
too,  they  were  a  clannish  lot  and  a  jealous  lot. 
They  resented  my  questioning  however  deli- 
cately I  might  do  it  and  often  refused  to  an- 
swer me.  But  in  spite  of  this  I  found  myself 
surprised  later  with  the  fund  of  really  valuable 
knowledge  I  acquired. 

In  addition  to  this  I  acquired  sources  of  in- 
formation.    I  found  out  where  to  go  for  the 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    137 

real  facts.  I  learned  for  instance  who  for  this 
particular  job  was  supplying  for  the  contrac- 
tor his  cement  and  gravel  and  crushed  stone — 
though  as  it  happened  this  contractor  himself 
either  owned  or  controlled  his  own  plant  for 
the  production  of  most  of  his  material.  How- 
ever I  learned  something  when  I  learned  that. 
For  a  man  who  had  apparently  been  in  busi- 
ness all  his  life,  I  was  densely  ignorant  of  even 
the  fundamentals  of  business.  This  idea  of 
running  the  business  back  to  the  sources  of  the 
raw  material  was  a  new  idea  to  me.  I  had  not 
thought  of  the  contractor  as  owning  his  own 
quarries  and  gravel  pits,  obvious  as  the  ad- 
vantage was.  I  wanted  to  know  where  the 
tools  were  bought  and  how  much  they  cost — 
from  the  engines  and  hoisting  cranes  and  car- 
rying system  down  to  pick-axes,  crowbars  and 
shovels.  I  made  a  note  of  the  fact  that  many 
of  the  smaller  implements  were  not  cared  for 
properly  and  even  tried  to  estimate  how  with 
proper  attention  the  life  of  a  pick-axe  could  be 
prolonged.  I  joyed  particularly  in  every  such 
opportunity  as  this  no  matter  how  trivial  it  ap- 
peared later.  It  was  just  such  details  as  these 
which  gave  reality  to  my  dream. 

I  figured  out  how  many  cubic  feet  of  earth 


138  ONE  WAY  OUli 

per  day  per  man  was  being  handled  here  and 
how  this  varied  under  different  bosses.  I 
pried  and  hstened  and  questioned  and  figured 
even  when  digging.  I  worked  with  my  eyes 
and  ears  wide  open.  It  was  wonderful  how 
quickly  in  this  way  the  hours  flew.  A  day 
now  didn't  seem  more  than  four  hours  long. 
Many  the  time  I've  felt  actually  sorry  when 
the  signal  to  quit  work  was  given  at  night  and 
have  hung  around  for  half  an  hour  while  the 
engineer  fixed  his  boiler  for  the  night  and  the 
old  man  lighted  his  lanterns  to  string  along  the 
excavation.  I  don't  know  what  they  all 
thought  of  me,  but  I  know  some  of  them  set 
me  down  for  a  college  man  doing  the  work  for 
experience.  This  to  say  the  least  was  flatter- 
ing to  my  years. 

As  I  say,  a  lot  of  this  work  was  wasted 
energy  in  the  sense  that  I  acquired  anything 
worth  while,  but  none  of  it  was  wasted  when 
I  recall  the  joy  of  it.  If  I  had  actually  been  a 
college  boy  in  the  first  flush  of  youthful  en- 
thusiasm I  could  not  have  gone  at  my  work 
more  enthusiastically  or  dreamed  wilder  or  big- 
ger dreams.  Even  after  many  of  these  bub- 
bles were  pricked  and  had  vanished,  the  mood 
which  made  them  did  not  vanish.     I  have  never 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    139 

forgotten  and  never  can  forget  the  sheer  de- 
light of  those  months.  I  was  eighteen  again 
with  a  lot  besides  that  I  didn't  have  at  eight- 
een. 

My  work  along  another  line  was  more  prac- 
tical and  more  successful.  What  I  learned 
about  the  men  and  the  best  way  to  handle  them 
was  genuine  capital.  In  the  first  place  I  lost 
no  opportunity  to  make  myself  as  solid  as  pos- 
sible with  Dan  Rafferty.  This  was  not  alto- 
gether from  a  purely  selfish  motive  either.  I 
liked  the  man.  In  a  way  I  think  he  was  the 
most  lovable  man  I  ever  met,  although  that 
seems  a  lady-like  term  to  apply  to  so  rugged  a 
fellow.  But  below  his  beef  and  brawn,  below 
his  aggressiveness,  below  his  coarseness,  below 
even  a  peculiar  moral  bluntness  about  a  good 
many  things,  there  was  a  strain  of  something 
fine  about  Dan  Rafferty.  I  had  a  glimpse  of  it 
when  he  preferred  going  back  to  the  sewer  gas 
rather  than  let  a  man  like  the  old  foreman 
force  him  into  a  position  where  the  latter  could 
fire  him.  But  that  was  only  one  side  of  him. 
He  had  a  heart  as  big  as  a  woman's  and  one 
as  keen  to  respond  to  sympathy.  This  in  its 
turn  inspired  in  others  a  feeling  towards  him 
that  to  save  my  life  I  can  only  describe  as  love 


140  ONE  WAY  OUT 

— love  in  its  big  sense.  He'd  swear  like  a 
pirate  at  the  Dagoes  and  they'd  only  grin  back 
at  him  where'd  they'd  feel  like  knifing  any 
other  man.  And  when  Dan  learned  that  An- 
ton' had  lost  his  boy  he  sent  down  to  the  house 
a  wreath  of  flowers  half  as  big  as  a  cart  wheel. 
There  was  scarcely  a  day  when  some  old  lady 
didn't  manage  to  see  Dan  at  the  noon  hour 
and  draw  him  aside  with  a  mumbled  plea  that 
always  made  him  dig  into  his  pockets.  He 
caught  me  watching  him  one  day  and  said  in 
explanation,  "She's  me  grandmither." 

After  I'd  seen  at  least  a  dozen  different 
ones  approach  him  I  asked  him  if  they  were  all 
his  grandmothers. 

"Sure,"  he  said.  'Tvery  ould  woman  in  the 
ward  is  me  grandmither." 

Those  same  grandmothers  stood  him  in  good 
stead  later  in  his  life,  for  every  single  grand- 
mother had  some  forty  grandchildren  and  half 
of  these  had  votes.  But  Dan  wasn't  looking 
that  far  ahead  then.  Two  facts  rather  dis- 
tinguished him  at  the  start;  he  didn't  either 
drink  or  smoke.  He  didn't  have  any  opinions 
upon  the  subject  but  he  was  one  of  the  rare 
Irishmen  born  that  way.  Now  and  then  you'll 
find  one  and  as  likely  as  not  he'll  prove  one  of 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    141 

the  good  fellows  you'd  expect  to  see  in  the 
other  crowd.  However,  beyond  exciting  my 
interest  and  leading  me  to  score  him  some  fifty 
points  in  my  estimate  of  him  as  a  good  work- 
man, I  was  indifferent  to  this  side  of  his  char- 
acter. The  thing  that  impressed  me  most  was 
a  quality  of  leadership  he  seemed  to  possess. 
There  was  nothing  masterful  about  it.  You 
didn't  look  to  see  him  lead  in  any  especially 
good  or  great  cause,  but  you  could  see 
readily  enough  that  whatever  cause  he  chose, 
it  would  be  possible  for  him  to  gather 
about  him  a  large  personal  following.  I 
was  attracted  to  this  side  of  him  in  con- 
sidering him  as  having  about  all  the  good 
raw  material  for  a  great  boss.  Put  twenty 
men  on  a  rope  with  Dan  at  the  head  of  them 
and  just  let  him  say,  "Now,  biys — altogither," 
and  you'd  see  every  man's  neck  grow  taut  with 
the  strain.  I  know  because  I've  been  one  of 
the  twenty  and  felt  as  though  I  wanted  to  drag 
every  muscle  out  of  my  body.  And  when  it 
was  over  I'd  ask  myself  why  in  the  devil  I 
pulled  that  way.  When  I  told  myself  that  it 
was  because  I  was  pulling  with  Dan  Rafferty  I 
said  all  I  knew  about  it. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  any  man  who  secured 


142  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Dan  as  a  "boss  would  already  have  the  back- 
bone of  his  gang.  I  didn't  ever  expect  to  use 
him  in  this  way  but  I  wanted  the  man  for  a 
friend  and  I  wanted  to  learn  the  secret  of  his 
power  if  I  could.  But  I  may  as  well  confess 
right  now  that  I  never  fully  fathomed  that. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  had  not  neglected  the 
other  men.  At  every  opportunity  I  talked  with 
them.  At  the  beginning  I  made  it  a  point  to 
learn  their  names  and  addresses  which  I  jot- 
ted down  in  my  book.  I  learned  something 
from  them  of  the  padrone  system  and  the  un- 
fair contracts  into  which  they  were  trapped. 
I  learned  their  likes  and  dislikes,  their  am- 
bitions, and  as  much  as  possible  about  their 
families.  It  all  came  hard  at  first  but  little  by 
little  as  I  worked  with  them  I  found  them 
trusting  me  more  with  their  confidences. 

In  this  way  then  the  first  summer  passed. 
Both  Ruth  and  the  boy  in  the  meanwhile  were 
just  as  busy  about  their  respective  tasks  as  I 
was.  The  latter  took  to  the  gymnasium  work 
like  a  duck  to  water  and  in  his  enthusiasm  for 
this  tackled  his  lessons  with  renewed  interest. 
He  put  on  five  pounds  of  weight  and  what  with 
the  daily  ocean  swim  which  we  both  enjoyed, 
his  cheeks  took  on  color  and  he  became  as 


PIJVNS  FOR  THE  FUTURE         143 

brown  as  an  Indian.  If  he  had  passed  the 
summer  at  the  White  Mountains  he  could  not 
have  looked  any  hardier.  He  made  many- 
friends  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  They  were  all  am- 
bitious boys  and  they  woke  him  up  wonder- 
fully. I  was  careful  to  follow  him  closely 
in  this  new  life  and  made  it  a  point  to  see  the 
boys  myself  and  to  make  him  tell  me  at  the 
end  of  each  day  just  what  he  had  been  about. 
Dick  was  a  boy  I  could  trust  to  tell  me  every 
detail.  He  was  absolutely  truthful  and  he 
wasn't  afraid  to  open  his  heart  to  me  with 
whatever  new  questions  might  be  bothering 
him.  As  far  as  possible  I  tried  to  point  out  to 
him  what  to  me  seemed  the  good  points  in  his 
new  friends  and  to  warn  him  against  any  little 
weaknesses  among  them  which  from  time  to 
time  I  might  detect.  Ruth  did  the  rest.  A 
father,  however  much  a  comrade  he  may  be 
with  his  boy,  can  go  only  so  far.  There  is  al- 
ways plenty  left  which  belongs  to  the  mother — 
if  she  is  such  a  mother  as  Ruth. 

As  for  Ruth  herself  I  watched  her  anxiously 
in  fear  lest  the  new  life  might  wear  her  down 
but  honestly  as  far  as  the  house  was  concerned 
she  didn't  seem  to  have  as  much  to  bother  her 
as  she  had  before.     She  was  slowly  getting 


144  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  buying  and  the  cooking  down  to  a  science. 
Many  a  week  now  our  food  bill  went  as  low  as 
a  little  over  three  dollars.  We  bought  in 
larger  quantities  and  this  always  effected  a 
saving.  We  bought  a  barrel  of  flour  and  half 
a  barrel  of  sugar  for  one  thing.  Then  as  the 
new  potatoes  came  into  the  market  we  bought 
half  a  barrel  of  those  and  half  a  barrel  of  ap- 
ples. She  did  wonders  with  those  apples  and 
they  added  a  big  variety  to  our  menus.  An- 
other saving  was  effected  by  buying  suet  which 
cost  but  a  few  cents  a  pound,  trying  this  out 
and  mixing  it  with  the  lard  for  shortening. 
As  the  weather  became  cooler  we  had  baked 
beans  twice  a  week  instead  of  once.  These 
made  for  us  four  and  sometimes  five  or  six 
meals.  We  figured  out  that  we  could  bake  a 
quart  pot  of  beans,  using  half  a  pound  of  pork 
to  a  pot,  for  less  than  twenty  cents.  This  gave 
the  three  of  us  two  meals  with  some  left  over 
for  lunch,  making  the  cost  per  man  about  three 
cents.  And  they  made  a  hearty  meal,  too. 
That  was  a  trick  she  had  learned  in  the  coun- 
try where  baked  beans  are  a  staple  article  of 
diet.     I  liked  them  cold  for  my  lunch. 

As    for    clothes    neither    Ruth    nor    myself 
needed  much  more  than  we  had.     I  bought 


PLANS  FOR  THE  FUTURE    145 

nothing  but  one  pair  of  heavy  boots  which  Ruth 
picked  up  at  a  bankrupt  sale  for  two  dollars. 
On  herself  she  didn't  spend  a  cent.  She  brought 
down  here  with  her  a  winter  and  a  summer, 
street  suit,  several  house  dresses  and  three  or 
four  petticoats  and  a  goodly  supply  of  under 
things.  She  knew  how  to  care  for  them  and 
they  lasted  her.  I  brought  down,  in  addition 
to  my  business  suit,  a  Sunday  suit  of  blue 
serge  and  a  dress  suit  and  a  Prince  Albert. 
I  sold  the  last  two  to  a  second  hand  dealer  for 
eleven  dollars  and  this  helped  towards  the 
boy's  outfit  in  the  fall.  She  bought  for  him  a 
pair  of  three  dollar  shoes  for  a  dollar  and  a 
half  at  this  same  "Sold  Out"  sale,  a  dollar's 
worth  of  stockings  and  about  a  dollar's  worth 
of  underclothes.  He  had  a  winter  overcoat 
and  hat,  though  I  could  have  picked  up  these 
in  either  a  pawnshop  or  second  hand  store  for 
a  couple  of  dollars.  It  was  wonderful  what 
you  could  get  at  these  places,  especially  if  any- 
one had  the  knack  which  Ruth  had  of  making 
over  things. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   EMIGRANT    SPIRIT 

That  fall  the  boy  passed  his  entrance  exam- 
inations and  entered  the  finest  school  in  the 
state — the  city  high  school.  If  he  had  been 
worth  a  million  he  couldn't  have  had  better 
advantages.  I  v^^as  told  that  the  graduates  of 
this  school  entered  college  with  a  higher  av- 
erage than  the  graduates  of  most  of  the  big 
preparatory  schools.  Certainly  they  had  just 
as  good  instruction  and  if  anything  better  dis- 
cipline. There  was  more  competition  here  and 
a  real  competition.  Many  of  the  pupils  were 
foreign  born  and  a  much  larger  per  cent  of 
them  children  of  foreign  born.  Their  parents 
had  been  over  here  long  enough  to  realize 
what  an  advantage  an  education  was  and  the 
children  went  at  their  work  with  the  feeling 
that  their  future  depended  upon  their  applica- 
tion here. 

The  boy's  associates  might  have  been  more 
carefully  selected  at  some  fashionable  school 

146 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  147 

but  I  was  already  beginning  to  realize  that 
selected  associates  aren't  always  select  asso- 
ciates and  that  even  if  they  are  this  is  more 
of  a  disadvantage  than  an  advantage.  The 
fact  that  the  boy's  fellows  were  all  of  a  kind 
was  what  had  disturbed  me  even  in  the  little 
suburban  grammar  school.  For  that  matter  I 
can  see  now  that  even  for  Ruth  and  me  this 
sameness  was  a  handicap  for  both  us  and  our 
neighbors.  There  was  no  clash.  There  was 
a  dead  level.  I  don't  believe  that's  good  for 
either  boys  or  men  or  for  women. 

Supposing  this  open  door  policy  did  admit  a 
few  worthless  youngsters  into  the  school  and 
supposing  again  that  the  private  school  didn't 
admit  such  of  a  different  order  (which  I  very 
much  doubt) — along  with  these  Dick  was  go- 
ing to  find  here  the  men — the  past  had  proved 
this  and  the  present  was  proving  it — who 
eventually  would  become  our  statesmen,  our 
progressive  business  men,  our  lawyers  and 
doctors — if  not  our  conservative  bankers. 
For  one  graduate  of  such  a  school  as  my 
former  surroundings  had  made  me  think 
essential  for  the  boy,  I  could  count  now  a  dozen 
graduates  of  this  very  high  school  who  were 
distinguishing   themselves   in   the   city.     The 


148  ONE  WAY  OUT 

boy  was  going  to  meet  here  the  same  spirit  I 
was  getting  in  touch  with  among  my  emigrant 
friends — a  zeal  for  hfe,  a  behef  in  the  possi- 
bihties  of  hfe,  an  optimistic  determination  to 
use  these  possibihties,  which  somehow  the  blue- 
blooded  Americans  were  losing.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  life  was  getting  stale  for  the  fourth 
and  fifth  generation.  I  tried  to  make  the  boy 
see  this  point  of  view.  I  went  back  again  with 
him  to  the  pioneer  idea. 

"Dick,"  I  said  in  substance,  "your  great- 
great-grandfather  pulled  up  stakes  and  came 
over  to  this  country  when  there  was  nothing 
here  but  trees,  rocks  and  Indians.  It  was  a 
hard  fight  but  a  good  fight  and  he  left  a  son  to 
carry  on  the  fight.  So  generation  after  gen- 
eration they  fought  but  somehow  they  grew  a 
bit  weaker  as  they  fought.  "Now,"  I  said, 
"you  and  I  are  going  to  try  to  recover  that  lost 
ground.  Let's  think  of  ourselves  as  like  our 
great-great-grandfathers.  We've  just  come 
over  here.  So  have  about  a  mihion  others. 
The  fight  is  a  different  fight  to-day  but  it's  no 
less  a  fight  and  we're  going  to  win.  We  have 
a  good  many  advantages  that  these  newcom- 
ers haven't.  You  see  them  making  good  on 
every  side  of  you  but  I'll  bet  they  can't  lick  a 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  149 

good  American — when  he  isn't  asleep.     You 
and  I  are  going  to  make  good  too." 

"You  bet  we  are,  Dad,"  he  said,  with  his 
eyes  grown  bright. 

"Then,"  I  said,  "you  must  work  the  way 
the  newcomers  work.  I  don't  want  you  to 
think  you're  any  better  than  they  are.  You 
aren't.  But  you're  just  as  good  and  these  two 
hundred  years  we've  hved  here  ought  to  count 
for  something." 

The  boy  hfted  his  head  at  this. 

"You  make  me  feel  as  though  we'd  just 
landed  with  the  Pilgrims,"  he  said. 

"So  we  have,"  I  said.  "June  seventh  of  this' 
very  year  we  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock  just  as, 
our  ancestors  did  two  centuries  ago.  They've 
been  all  this  time  paving  the  way  for  you  and 
me.  They've  built  roads  and  schools  and  fac- 
tories and  it's  up  to  us  now  to  use  them. 
You  and  I  have  just  landed  from  England. 
Let's  see  what  we  can  do  as  pioneers." 

I  wanted  to  get  at  the  young  American  in 
him.  I  wanted  him  to  realize  that  he  was 
something  more  than  the  son  of  his  parents; 
something  more  than  just  an  average  English- 
speaking  boy.  I  wanted  him  to  feel  the  im- 
petus of  the  big  history  back  of  him  and  the 


150  ONE  WAY  OUT 

big  history  yet  to  be  made  ahead  of  him.  He 
had  known  nothing  of  that  before.  The  word 
American  had  no  meaning  to  him  except  when 
a  regiment  of  soldiers  was  marching  by.  I 
wanted  him  to  feel  all  the  time  as  he  did  when 
his  throat  grew  lumpy  with  the  band  playing 
and  the  stars  and  stripes  flying  on  Fourth  of 
July  or  Decoration  Day. 

I  urged  him  to  study  hard  as  the  first  es- 
sential towards  success  but  I  also  told  him 
to  get  into  the  school  life.  I  didn't  want  him 
to  stand  back  as  his  tendency  was  and  watch 
the  other  fellows.  I  didn't  want  him  to  sit  in 
the  bleachers — at  least  not  until  he  had  proved 
that  this  was  the  place  for  him.  Even  then  I 
wanted  him  to  lead  the  cheering.  I  w^anted 
him  to  test  himself  in  the  literary  societies,  the 
dramatic  clubs,  on  the  athletic  field.  In  other 
words,  instead  of  remaining  passive  I  w^anted 
him  to  take  an  aggressive  attitude  tow^ards  life. 
In  still  other  words  instead  of  being  a  middle- 
classer  I  wanted  him  to  get  something  of  the 
emigrant  spirit.  And  I  had  the  satisfaction 
of  seeing  him  begin  his  work  with  the  germ  of 
that  idea  in  his  brain. 

In  the  meanwhile  w^ith  the  approach  of  cold 
weather  I  saw  a  new  item  of  expense  loom  up 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  151 

in  the  form  of  coal.  We  had  used  kerosene 
all  summer  but  now  it  became  necessary  for 
the  sake  of  heat  to  get  a  stove.  For  a  week  I 
took  what  time  I  could  spare  and  wandered 
around  among  the  junk  shops  looking  for  a 
second  hand  stove  and  finally  found  just  what 
I  wanted.  I  paid  three  dollars  for  it  and  it 
cost  me  another  dollar  to  have  some 
small  repairs  made.  I  set  it  up  myself  in  the 
living  room  which  we  decided  to  use  as  a 
kitchen  for  the  winter.  But  when  I  came  to 
look  into  the  matter  of  getting  coal  down  here 
I  found  I  was  facing  a  pretty  serious  prob- 
lem. Coal  had  been  a  big  item  in  the  suburbs 
but  the  way  people  around  me  were  buying  it, 
made  it  a  still  bigger  one.  No  cellar  accom- 
modations came  with  the  tenement  and  so  each 
one  was  forced  to  buy  his  coal  by  the  basket  or 
bag.  A  basket  of  anthracite  was  costing  them 
at  this  time  about  forty  cents.  This  was  for 
about  eighty  pounds  of  coal,  which  made  the 
total  cost  per  ton  eleven  dollars — at  least  three 
dollars  and  a  half  over  the  regular  price.  Even 
with  economy  a  person  would  use  at  least  a 
bag  a  week.  This,  to  leave  a  liberal  margin, 
would  amount  to  about  a  ton  and  a  half  of 
coal  during  the  winter  months.     I  didn't  like 


152  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  idea  of  absorbing  the  half  dollar  or  so  a 
week  that  Ruth  was  squeezing  out  towards 
what  few  clothes  we  had  to  buy,  in  this  way — 
at  least  the  over-charge  part  of  it.  With  the 
first  basket  I  brought  home,  I  said,  "I  see 
where  you'll  have  to  dig  down  into  the  ginger 
jar  this  winter,  little  woman." 

She  looked  as  startled  as  though  I  had  told 
her  someone  had  stolen  the  savings. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

I  pointed  to  the  basket. 

"Coal  costs  about  eleven  dollars  a  ton,  down 
here." 

When  she  found  out  that  this  was  all  that 
caused  my  remark,  she  didn't  seem  to  be  dis- 
turbed. 

"Billy,"  she  said,  "before  we  touch  the  ginger 
jar  it  will  have  to  cost  twenty  dollars  a  ton. 
We'll  live  on  pea  soup  and  rice  three  times  a 
day  before  I  touch  that." 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "but  it  does  seem  a  pity 
that  the  burden  of  such  prices  as  these  should 
fall  on  the  poor." 

"Why  do  they?"  she  asked. 

"Because  in  this  case,"  I  said,  "the  dealers 
seem  to  have  us  where  the  wool  is  short." 

"How  have  they?"  she  insisted. 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  153 

"We  can't  buy  coal  by  the  ton  because  we 
haven't  any  place  to  put  it."  She  thought  a 
moment  and  then  she  said : 

"We  could  take  care  of  a  fifth  of  a  ton,  Billy. 
That's  only  five  baskets." 

'They  won't  sell  five  any  cheaper  than  one." 

"And  every  family  in  this  house  could  take 
care  of  five,"  she  went  on.  "That  would  make 
a  ton." 

I  began  to  see  what  she  meant  and  as  I 
thought  of  it  I  didn't  see  why  it  wasn't  a  prac- 
tical scheme. 

"I  believe  that's  a  good  idea,"  I  said.  "And 
if  there  were  more  women  like  you  in  the  world 
I  don't  believe  there'd  be  any  trusts  at  all." 

"Nonsense,"  she  said.  "You  leave  it  to  me 
now  and  I'll  see  the  other  women  in  the  house. 
They  are  the  ones  who'll  appreciate  a  good  sav- 
ing like  that." 

She  saw  them  and  after  a  good  deal  of  talk 
they  agreed,  so  I  told  Ruth  to  tell  them  to  save 
out  of  next  Saturday  night's  pay  a  dollar  and 
a  half  apiece.  I  was  a  bit  afraid  that  if  I 
didn't  get  the  cash  when  the  coal  was  delivered 
I  might  get  stuck  on  the  deal.  The  next  Mon- 
day I  ordered  the  coal  and  asked  to  have  it 
delivered  late  in  the  day.     When  I  came  home 


154  ONE  WAY  OUT 

I  found  the  wagon  waiting  and  it  created 
about  as  much  excitement  on  the  street  as 
an  ambulance.  I  guess  it  was  the  first  time 
in  the  history  of  Little  Italy  that  a  coal 
team  had  ever  stopped  before  a  tenement. 
The  driver  had  brought  baskets  with  him 
and  I  filled  up  one  and  took  it  to  a  store 
nearby  and  weighed  into  it  eighty  pounds 
of  coal.  With  that  for  my  guide  I  gathered 
the  other  men  of  the  families  about  me  and 
made  them  carry  the  coal  in  while  I  measured 
it  out.  The  driver  who  at  first  was  inclined  to 
object  to  the  whole  proceeding  was  content  to 
let  things  go  on  when  he  found  himself  re- 
heved  of  all  the  carrying.  We  emptied  the 
wagon  in  no  time  and  the  other  men  insisted 
upon  carrying  up  my  coal  for  me.  I  collected 
every  cent  of  my  money  and  incidentally  es- 
tablished myself  on  a  firm  footing  with  every 
family  in  the  house.  Several  other  tenements 
later  adopted  the  plan  but  the  idea  didn't  take 
hold  the  way  you'd  have  thought  it  would.  I 
guess  it  was  because  there  weren't  any  more 
Ruths  around  there  to  oversee  the  job.  Then, 
too,  while  these  people  are  far-sighted  in  a  good 
many  ways,  they  are  short-sighted  in  others. 
Neither  the  wholesale  nor  co-operative  plans. 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  155 

appeal  to  them.  For  one  thing  they  are 
suspicious  and  for  another  they  don't  Hke 
to  spend  any  more  than  they  have  to  day  by 
day.  Later  on  through  Ruth's  influence  we 
carried  our  scheme  a  Httle  farther  with  just  the 
people  in  the  house  and  bought  flour  and  sugar 
that  way  but  it  was  made  possible  only  through 
their  absolute  trust  in  her.  We  always  in- 
sisted on  carrying  out  every  such  little  opera- 
tion on  a  cash  basis  and  they  never  failed  us. 

Ruth's  influence  had  been  gradually  spread- 
ing through  the  neighborhood.  She  had 
found  time  to  meet  the  other  families  in  the 
house  and  through  them  had  met  a  dozen 
more.  The  first  floor  was  occupied  by 
Michele,  an  Italian  laborer,  his  wife,  his  wife's 
sister  and  two  children.  On  the  second  floor 
there  was  Giuseppe,  the  young  sculptor,  and 
his  father  and  mother.  The  father  was  an  in- 
valid and  the  lad  supported  the  three.  On  the 
third  floor  lived  a  fruit  peddler,  his  wife  and  his 
wife's  mother — rather  a  commonplace  family, 
while  the  fourth  floor  was  occupied  by  Pietro, 
a  young  fellow  who  sold  cut  flowers  on  the 
street  and  hoped  some  day  to  have  a  garden  of 
his  own.  He  had  two  children  and  a  grand- 
mother to  care  for. 


156  ONE  WAY  OUT 

It  certainly  afforded  a  contrast  to  visit  those 
other  fiats  and  then  Ruth's.  Right  here  is 
where  her  superior  intelhgence  came  in,  of 
course.  The  foreign-born  women  do  not  so 
quickly  adapt  themselves  to  the  standards  of 
this  country  as  the  men  do.  Most  of  them  as 
I  learned,  come  from  the  country  districts  of 
Italy  where  they  live  very  rudely.  Once  here 
they  make  their  new  quarters  little  better  than 
their  old.  The  younger  ones  however  who  are 
going  to  school  are  doing  better.  But  taken 
by  and  large  it  was  difficult  to  persuade  them 
that  cleanliness  offered  any  especial  advan- 
tages. It  wasn't  as  though  they  minded  the 
dirt  and  were  chained  to  it  by  circumstances 
from  which  they  couldn't  escape — as  I  used  to 
think.  They  simply  didn't  object  to  it.  So 
long  as  they  were  warm  and  had  food  enough 
they  were  content.  They  didn't  suffer  in  any 
way  that  they  themselves  could  see. 

But  when  Ruth  first  went  into  their  quarters 
she  was  horrified.  She  thought  that  at  length 
she  was  face  to  face  with  all  the  misery  and 
squalor  of  the  slums  of  which  she  had  read.  I 
remember  her  chalk-white  face  as  she  met  me 
at  the  door  upon  my  return  home  one  night. 
She  nearly  drove  the  color  out  of  my  own 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  157 

cheeks  for  I  thought  surely  that  something 
had  happened  to  the  hoy.  But  it  wasn't  that; 
she  had  heard  that  the  baby  on  the  first  floor 
was  ill  and  had  gone  down  there  to  see  if  there 
was  anything  she  might  do  for  it.  Until  then 
she  had  seen  nothing  but  the  outside  of  the 
other  doors  from  the  hall  and  they  looked  no 
different  from  our  own.  But  once  inside — 
well  I  guess  that's  where  the  two  hundred  years 
if  not  the  four  hundred  years  back  of  us  native 
Americans  counts. 

"Why,  Billy,"  she  cried,  "it  was  awful.  I'll 
never  get  that  picture  out  of  mind  if  I  live  to 
be  a  hundred." 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  asked. 

"Why  the  poor  little  thing—" 

"What  poor  little  thing?"  I  interrupted. 

"Michele's  baby.  It  lay  there  in  dirty  rags 
with  its  pinched  white  face  staring  up  at  me  as 
though  just  begging  for  a  clean  bed." 

"What's  the  matter  with  it?" 

"Matter  with  it  ?  It's  a  wonder  it  isn't  dead 
and  buried.  The  district  nurse  came  in  while 
I  was  there  and  told  me," — she  shuddered — 
"that  they'd  been  feeding  it  on  macaroni  cooked 
in  greasy  gravy.  And  it  isn't  six  months  old 
yet." 


158  ONE  WAY  OUT 

"No  wonder  it  looked  white,"  I  said,  remem- 
bering how  we  had  discussed  for  a  week  the 
wisdom  of  giving  Dick  the  coddled  white  of  an 
egg  at  that  age. 

"Why  the  conditions  down  there  are  terri- 
ble," cried  Ruth.  "Michele  must  be  very,  very 
poor.  The  floor  wasn't  washed,  you  couldn't 
see  out  of  the  windows,  and  the  clothes — " 

She  held  up  her  hands  unable  to  find  words. 

"That  does  sound  bad,"  I  said. 

"It's  criminal.  Billy — we  can't  allow  a 
family  in  the  same  house  with  us  to  suffer  like 
that,  can  we?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

"Then  go  down  and  see  what  you  can  do.  I 
guess  we  can  squeeze  out  fifty  cents  for  them, 
can't  we,  Billy?" 

"I  guess  you  could  squeeze  fifty  cents  out  of 
a  stone  for  a  sick  baby,"  I  said. 

The  upshot  of  it  was  that  I  went  down  and 
saw  Michele.  As  Ruth  had  said  his  quarters 
were  anything  but  clean  but  they  didn't  im- 
press me  as  being  in  so  bad  a  condition  as  she 
had  described  them.  Perhaps  my  work  in  the 
ditch  had  made  me  a  little  more  used  to  dirt. 
I  found  Michele  a  healthy,  temperate,  able- 
bodied  man  and  I  learned  that  he  was  earning 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  159 

as  much  as  I.  Not  only  that  but  the  women 
took  in  garments  to  finish  and  picked  up  the 
matter  of  two  or  three  dohars  a  week  extra. 
There  were  five  in  the  family  but  they  were 
far  from  being  in  want.  In  fact  Michele  had 
a  good  bank  account.  They  had  all  they 
wanted  to  eat,  were  warm  and  really  prosper- 
ous. There  was  absolutely  no  need  of  the  dirt. 
It  was  there  because  they  didn't  mind  it.  A 
five  cent  cake  of  soap  would  have  made  the 
rooms  clean  as  a  whistle  and  there  were  two 
women  to  do  the  scrubbing.  I  didn't  leave  my 
fifty  cents  but  I  came  back  upstairs  with  a  bet- 
ter appreciation,  if  that  were  possible,  of  what 
such  a  woman  as  Ruth  means  to  a  man.  Even 
the  baby  began  to  get  better  as  soon  as  the 
district  nurse  drove  into  the  parent's  head  a 
few  facts  about  sensible  infant  feeding. 

I  don't  want  to  make  out  that  life  is  all  beer 
and  skittles  for  the  tenement  dwellers.  It 
isn't.  But  I  ran  across  any  number  of  such 
cases  as  this  where  conditions  were  not  nearly 
so  bad  as  they  appeared  on  the  surface.  Tak- 
ing into  account  the  number  of  people  who 
were  gathered  together  here  in  a  small  area  I 
didn't  see  among  the  temperate  and  able- 
bodied  any  worse  examples  of  hard  luck  than 


i6o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

I  saw  among  my  former  associates.  In  fact 
of  sheer  abstract  hard  luck  I  didn't  see  as 
much.  In  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  cases 
the  conditions  were  of  their  own  making — 
either  the  man  was  a  drunkard  or  the  women 
slovenly  or  the  whole  family  was  just  naturally 
vicious.  Ignorance  may  excuse  some  of  this 
but  not  all  of  it.  Perhaps  I'm  not  what  you'd 
call  s>Tnpathetic  but  I've  heard  a  lot  of  men 
talk  about  these  people  in  a  way  that  sounds 
to  me  like  twaddle.  I  never  ran  across  a  fam- 
ily down  here  in  such  misery  as  that  which 
Steve  Bonnington's  wife  endured  for  years 
without  a  whimper. 

Bonnington  was  a  clerk  with  a  big  in- 
surance company.  He  lived  four  houses  be- 
low us  on  our  street.  I  suppose  he  was  earn- 
ing about  eighteen  hundred  dollars  a  year 
when  he  died.  He  left  five  children  and  he 
never  had  money  enough  even  to  insure  in  his 
own  company.  He  didn't  leave  a  cent.  When 
Helen  Bonnington  came  back  from  the  grave 
it  was  to  face  the  problem  of  supporting  un- 
aided, either  by  experience  or  relatives,  five 
children  ranging  from  twelve  to  one.  She 
was  a  shy,  retiring  little  body  who  had  sapped 
her  strength  in  just  bringing  the  children  into 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  i6l 

the  world  and  caring  for  them  in  the  privacy 
of  her  home.  She  had  neither  the  tempera- 
ment nor  the  training  to  face  the  world. 
But  she  bucked  up  to  it.  She  sold  out  of 
the  house  what  things  she  could  spare,  se- 
cured cheap  rooms  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
neighborhood  and  announced  that  she  would 
do  sewing.  What  it  cost  her  to  come  back 
among  her  old  friends  and  do  that  is  a 
particularly  choice  type  of  agony  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  a  tenement  widow  to 
appreciate.  And  this  same  self-respect  which 
both  Helen's  education  and  her  environment 
forced  her  to  maintain,  handicapped  her  in 
other  ways.  You  couldn't  give  Mrs.  Bon- 
nington  scraps  from  your  table;  you  couldn't 
give  her  old  clothes  or  old  shoes  or  money.  It 
wasn't  her  fault  because  this  was  so;  it  wasn't 
your  fault. 

When  her  children  were  sick  she  couldn't 
send  them  off  to  the  public  wards  of  the  hos- 
pitals. In  the  first  place  half  the  hospitals 
wouldn't  take  them  as  charity  patients  simply 
because  she  maintained  a  certain  dignity,  and 
in  the  second  place  the  idea,  by  education,  was 
so  repugnant  to  her  that  it  never  entered  her 
head   to   try.     So   she   stayed   at   home   and 


i62  ONE  WAY  OUT 

sewed  from  daylight  until  she  couldn't  hold 
open  her  eyes  at  night.  That's  where  you  get 
your  true  "Song  of  the  Shirt."  She  not  only 
sewed  her  fingers  to  the  bone  but  while  doing 
it  she  suffered  a  very  fine  kind  of  torture  won- 
dering what  would  happen  to  the  five  if  she 
broke  down.  Asylums  and  homes  and  hos- 
pitals don't  imply  any  great  disgrace  to  most 
of  the  tenement  dwellers  but  to  a  woman  of  that 
type  they  mean  Hell.  God  knows  how  she  did 
it  but  she  kept  the  five  alive  and  clothed  and 
in  school  until  the  boy  was  about  fifteen  and 
went  to  work.  When  I  hear  of  the  lone  wid- 
ows of  the  tenements,  who  are  apt  to  be  very 
husky,  and  who  work  out  with  no  great  mental 
struggle  and  who  have  clothes  and  food  given 
them  and  who  set  the  children  to  work  as  soon 
as  they  are  able  to  walk,  I  feel  like  getting  up 
in  my  seat  and  telling  about  Helen  Bonning- 
ton — a  plain  middle-classer.  And  she  was  no 
exception  either. 

I  seem  to  have  rambled  ofif  a  bit  here  but 
this  was  only  one  of  many  contrasts  which  I 
made  in  these  years  which  seemed  to  me  to  be 
all  in  favor  of  my  new  neighbors.  The  point 
is  that  at  the  bottom  you  not  only  see  advan- 
tages you  didn't  see  before  but  you're  in  a  po- 


THE  EMIGRANT  SPIRIT  163 

sition  to  use  them.  You  aren't  shackled  by 
conventions;  you  aren't  cramped  by  caste. 
The  world  stands  ready  to  help  the  under  dog 
but  before  it  will  lift  a  finger  it  wants  to  see 
the  dog  stretched  out  on  its  back  with  all  four 
legs  sticking  up  in  prayer.  Of  the  middle-class 
dog  who  fights  on  and  on,  even  after  he's  wob- 
bly and  can't  see,  it  doesn't  seem  to  take  much 
notice. 

However  Ruth  started  in  with  a  few  reforms 
of  her  own.  She  made  it  a  point  to  go  down 
and  see  young  Michele  every  day  and  watch 
that  he  didn't  get  any  more  macaroni  and 
gravy.  The  youngster  himself  resented  this 
interference  but  the  parents  took  it  in  good 
part.  Then  in  time  she  ventured  further  and 
suggested  that  the  baby  would  be  better  off  if 
the  windows  were  washed  to  let  in  the  sun- 
shine and  the  floor  scrubbed  a  bit.  Finally  she 
became  bold  enough  to  hint  that  it  might  be 
well  to  wash  some  of  the  bed  clothing. 

The  district  nurse  appreciated  the  change, 
if  Michele  himself  didn't  and  I  found  that  it 
wasn't  long  before  Miss  Colver  was  making 
use  of  this  new  influence  in  the  house.  She 
made  a  call  on  Ruth  and  discussed  her  cases 
with  her  until  in  the  end  she  made  of  her  a 


l64  ONE  WAY  OUT 

sort  of  first  assistant.  This  was  the  beginning 
of  a  new  field  of  activity  for  Ruth  which  finally 
won  for  her  the  name  of  Little  Mother.  It 
was  wonderful  how  quickly  these  people  dis- 
covered the  sweet  qualities  in  Ruth  that  had 
passed  all  unnoticed  in  the  old  life. 
It  made  me  very  proud. 


CHAPTER   XI 

NEW   OPPORTUNITIES 

I  had  found  that  I  was  badly  handicapped  in 
all  intercourse  with  my  Italian  fellow  workers 
by  the  fact  that  I  knew  nothing  of  their  lan- 
guage and  that  they  knew  but  little  English. 
The  handicap  did  not  lie  so  much  in  the  fact 
that  we  couldn't  make  ourselves  understood — 
we  could  after  a  rough  fashion — as  it  did  in 
the  fact  that  this  made  a  barrier  which  kept 
our  two  nationalities  sharply  defined.  I  was 
always  an  American  talking  to  an  Italian. 
The  boss  was  always  an  American  talking  to 
a  Dago.  This  seemed  to  me  a  great  disad- 
vantage. It  ought  to  be  just  a  foreman  to  his 
man  or  one  man  to  another. 

The  chance  to  acquire  a  new  language  I 
thought  had  passed  with  my  high  school  days, 
but  down  here  everyone  was  learning  English 
and  so  I  resolved  to  study  Italian.  I  made  a 
bargain  with  Giuseppe,  the  young  sculptor,  who 

165 


1 66  ONE  WAY  OUT 

was  now  a  frequent  visitor  at  our  flat,  to  teach 
me  his  language  in  return  for  instruction  in 
mine.  He  agreed  though  he  had  long  been  get- 
ting good  instruction  at  the  night  school.  But 
the  lad  had  found  an  appreciative  friend  in 
Ruth  who  not  only  sincerely  admired  the  work 
he  was  doing  but  who  admired  his  enthusiasm 
and  his  knowledge  of  art.  I  liked  him  myself 
for  he  was  dreaming  bigger  things  than  I.  To 
watch  his  thin  cheeks  grow  red  and  his  big 
brown  eyes  flash  as  he  talked  of  some  old 
painting  gave  me  a  realization  that  there  was 
something  else  to  be  thought  of  even  down 
here  than  mere  money  success.  It  was  good 
for  me. 

The  poor  fellow  was  driven  almost  mad  by 
having  to  offer  for  sale  some  of  the  casts  which 
his  master  made  him  carry.  He  would  have 
liked  to  sell  only  busts  of  Michael  Angelo  and 
Dante  and  worthy  reproductions  of  the  old 
masters. 

"There  are  so  many  beautiful  things,"  he 
used  to  exclaim  excitedly  in  broken  English; 
"why  should  they  want  to  make  anything  that 
is  not  beautiful?" 

He  sputtered  time  and  time  again  over  the 
pity  of  gilding  the  casts.     You'd  have  thought 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  167 

it  was  a  crime  which  ought  to  be  punished  by 
hanging. 

"Even  Dante,"  he  groaned  one  night,  "that 
wonderful,  white  sad  face  of  Dante  covered 
all  over  with  gilt!" 

"It  has  to  look  like  gold  before  an  American 
will  buy  it,"  I  suggested. 

"Yes,"  he  nodded.  "They  would  even  gild 
the  Christ." 

Ruth  said  she  wanted  to  learn  Italian  with 
me,  and  so  the  three  of  us  used  to  get  together 
every  night  right  after  dinner.  I  bought  a 
grammar  at  a  second  hand  bookstore  but  we 
used  to  spend  most  of  our  time  in  memorizing 
the  common  every  day  things  a  man  would  be 
likely  to  use  in  ordinary  conversation.  Giu- 
seppe would  say,  "Ha  Ella  il  mio  cappello?" 

And  I  would  say, 

"Si,  Signore,  ho  il  di  Lei  cappello." 

"Ha  Ella  il  di  Lei  pane?" 

"Si,  Signore,  ho  il  mio  pane." 

"Ha  Ella  il  mio  zucchero?" 

"Si,  Signore,  ho  il  di  Lei  zucchero." 

There  wasn't  much  use  in  going  over  such 
simple  things  in  English  for  Giuseppe  and  so 
instead  of  this  Ruth  would  read  aloud  some- 
thing from   Tennyson.     After   explaining   to 


i68  ONE  WAY  OUT 

him  just  what  every  new  word  meant,  she 
would  let  him  read  aloud  to  her  the  same  pas- 
sage. He  soon  became  very  enthusiastic  over 
the  text  itself  and  would  often  stop  her  with 
the  exclamation, 

"Ah,  there  is  a  study !" 

Then  he  would  tell  us  just  how  he  would 
model  whatever  the  picture  happened  to  be 
that  he  saw  in  his  mind.  It  was  wonderful 
how  clearly  he  saw  these  pictures.  He  could 
tell  you  even  down  to  how  the  folds  of  the 
women's  dresses  should  fall  just  as  though  he 
were  actually  looking  at  living  people. 

After  a  week  or  two  when  we  had  learned 
some  of  the  simpler  phrases  Ruth  and  I  used 
to  practise  them  as  much  as  possible  every  day. 
We  felt  quite  proud  when  we  could  ask  one 
another  for  ''quel  libro"  or  "quell'  abito"  or 
"il  cotello"  or  "il  cucchiaio."  I  was  surprised 
at  how  soon  we  were  able  to  carry  on  quite 
a  long  talk. 

This  new  idea — that  even  though  I  was  ap- 
proaching forty  I  wasn't  too  old  to  resume  my 
studies — took  root  in  another  direction.  As  I 
had  become  accustomed  to  the  daily  physical 
exercise  and  no  longer  returned  home  ex- 
hausted I  felt  as  though  I  had  no  right  to  loaf 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  169 

through  my  evenings,  much  as  the  privilege  of 
spending  them  with  Ruth  meant  to  me.  My 
muscles  had  become  as  hard  and  tireless  as 
those  of  a  well-trained  athlete  so  that  at  night 
I  was  as  alert  mentally  as  in  the  morning.  It 
made  me  feel  lazy  to  sit  around  the  house  after 
an  hour's  lesson  in  Italian  and  watch  Ruth  busy 
with  her  sewing  and  see  the  boy  bending  over 
his  books.  Still  I  couldn't  think  of  anything 
that  was  practicable  until  I  heard  Giuseppe 
talk  one  evening  about  the  night  school.  I 
had  thought  this  was  a  sort  of  grammar  school 
with  clay  modeling  thrpwn  in  for  amusement. 

"No,  Signore,"  he  said.  "You  can  learn 
anything  there.  And  there  is  another  school 
where  you  can  learn  other  things." 

I  went  out  that  very  evening  and  found  that 
the  school  he  attended  taught  among  other 
subjects,  book  keeping  and  stenography — two 
things  which  appealed  to  me  strongly.  But  in 
talking  to  the  principal  he  suggested  that  be- 
fore I  decided  I  look  into  the  night  trade  school 
which  was  run  in  connection  with  a  manual 
training  school.  I  took  his  advice  and  there 
I  found  so  many  things  I  wanted  that  I  didn't 
know  what  to  choose.  I  was  amazed  at  the 
opportunity.     A  man  could  learn  here  about 


170  ONE  WAY  OUT 

any  trade  he  cared  to  take  up.  Both  tools  and 
material  were  furnished  him.  And  all  this 
was  within  ten  minutes'  walk  of  the  house.  I 
could  still  have  my  early  evenings  with  Ruth 
and  the  boy  even  on  the  three  nights  I  would 
be  in  school  until  a  quarter  past  seven,  spend 
two  hours  at  learning  my  trade,  and  get  back 
to  the  house  again  before  ten.  I  don't  see 
how  a  man  could  ask  for  anything  better  than 
this.  Even  then  I  wouldn't  be  away  from 
home  as  much  as  I  often  was  in  my  old  life. 
There  were  many  dreary  stretches  towards  the 
end  of  my  service  with  the  United  Woollen 
when  I  didn't  get  home  until  midnight.  And 
the  only  extra  pay  we  salaried  men  received 
for  that  was  a  brighter  hope  for  the  job  ahead. 
This  was  always  dangled  before  our  eyes  by 
Morse  as  a  bait  when  he  wished  to  drive  us 
harder  than  usual. 

I  had  my  choice  of  a  course  In  carpentry, 
bricklaying,  sheet  metal  work,  plumbing,  elec- 
tricity, drawing  and  pattern  draughting.  The 
work  covered  from  one  to  three  years  and  as- 
sured a  man  at  the  end  of  this  time  of  a  posi- 
tion among  the  skilled  workmen  who  make  in 
wages  as  much  as  many  a  professional  man. 
Not  only  this  but  a  man  with  such  training  as 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  171 

this  and  with  ambition  could  look  forward 
without  any  great  stretch  of  the  imagination 
to  becoming  a  foreman  in  his  trade  and  eventu- 
ally winning  independence.  All  this  he  could 
accomplish  while  earning  his  daily  wages  as 
an  apprentice  or  a  common  laborer. 

The  class  in  masonry  seemed  to  be  more  in 
line  with  my  present  plans  than  any  of  the 
other  subjects.  It  ought  to  prove  of  value,  I 
thought,  to  a  man  in  the  general  contracting 
business  and  certainly  to  a  man  who  under- 
took the  contracting  of  building  construction. 
At  any  rate  it  was  a  trade  in  which  I  was 
told  there  was  a  steady  demand  for  good 
men  and  at  which  many  men  were  earn- 
ing from  three  to  five  dollars  a  day.  I  must 
admit  that  at  first  I  didn't  understand  how 
brick-laying  could  be  taught  for  I  thought  it 
merely  a  matter  of  practice  but  a  glance  at  the 
outline  of  the  course  showed  me  my  error.  It 
looked  as  complicated  as  many  of  the  univer- 
sity courses.  The  work  included  first  the  lay- 
ing of  a  brick  to  line.  A  man  was  given  actual 
practice  with  bricks  and  mortar  under  an  ex- 
pert mason.  From  this  a  man  was  advanced, 
when  he  had  acquired  sufficient  skill,  to  the 
laying  out  of  the  American  bond;  then  the 


172  ONE  WAY  OUT 

building'  of  square  piers  of  different  sizes; 
then  the  building  of  square  and  pigeon 
hole  corners,  then  the  laying  out  of  brick  foot- 
ings. The  second  year  included  rowlock 
and  bonded  segmental  arches;  blocking, 
toothing,  and  corbeling;  building  and  bond- 
ing of  vaulted  walls;  polygonal  and  circu- 
lar walls,  piers  and  chimneys;  fire-places  and 
flues.  The  third  year  advanced  a  man  to  the 
nice  points  of  the  trade  such  as  the  foreign 
bonds — Flemish,  Dutch,  Roman  and  Old  Eng- 
lish; cutting  and  turning  of  arches  of  all  kinds, 
— straight,  cambered,  semi-circular,  three  cen- 
tred elliptical,  and  many  forms  of  Gothic  and 
Moorish  arches ;  also  brick  panels  and  cornices. 
Finally  it  gave  practice  in  the  laying  out  of 
plans  and  work  from  these  plans.  Whatever 
time  was  left  was  devoted  to  speed  in  all  these 
things  as  far  as  it  was  consistent  with  accurate 
and  careful  workmanship. 

I  enrolled  at  once  and  also  entered  a  class  in 
architectural  drawing  which  was  given  in  con- 
nection with  this. 

I  came  back  and  told  Ruth  and  though  of 
course  she  was  afraid  it  might  be  too  hard 
work  for  me  she  admitted  that  in  the  end  it 
might  save  me  many  months  of  still  harder 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  173 

work.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  the  boy  I  think 
she  would  have  Hked  to  follow  me  even  in 
these  studies.  Whatever  new  thing  I  took  up, 
she  wanted  to  take  up  too.  But  as  I  told  her, 
it  was  she  who  was  making  the  whole  business 
possible  and  that  was  enough  for  one  woman 
to  do. 

The  school  didn't  open  for  a  week  and  dur- 
ing that  time  I  saw  something  of  Rafferty. 
He  surprised  me  by  coming  around  to  the  flat 
one  night — for  what  I  couldn't  imagine.  I 
was  glad  to  see  him  but  I  suspected  that  he 
had  some  purpose  in  making  such  an  effort. 
I  introduced  him  to  Ruth  and  we  all  sat  down 
in  the  kitchen  and  I  told  him  what  I  was  plan- 
ning to  do  this  winter  and  asked  him  why  he 
didn't  join  me.  I  was  rather  surprised  that 
the  idea  didn't  appeal  to  him  but  I  soon  found 
out  that  he  had  another  interest  which  took 
all  his  spare  time.  This  interest  was  nothing 
else  than  politics.  And  Rafferty  hadn't  been 
over  here  long  enough  yet  to  qualify  as  a  voter. 
In  spite  of  this  he  was  already  on  speaking 
terms  with  the  state  representative  from  our 
district,  the  local  alderman,  and  was  an  active 
lieutenant  of  Sweeney's — the  ward  boss.  At 
present  he  was  interesting  himself  in  the  can- 


174  ONE  WAY  OUT 

didacy  of  this  same  Sweeney  who  was  the  Dem- 
ocratic machine  candidate  for  Congress.  Ow- 
ing to  some  local  row  he  was  in  danger  of  being 
knifed.  Dan  had  come  round  to  make  sure  I 
was  registered  and  to  swing  me  over  if  pos- 
sible to  the  ranks  of  the  faithful. 

The  names  of  which  he  spoke  so  familiarly 
meant  nothing  to  me.  I  had  heard  a  few  of 
them  from  reading  the  papers  but  I  hadn't  read 
a  paper  for  three  months  now  and  knew  noth- 
ing at  all  about  the  present  campaign.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  I  never  voted  except  for  the  reg- 
ular Republican  candidate  for  governor  and 
the  regular  Republican  candidate  for  presi- 
dent. And  I  did  that  much  only  from  habit. 
My  father  had  been  a  Republican  and  I  was  a 
Republican  after  him  and  I  felt  that  in  a  gen- 
eral way  this  party  stood  for  honesty  as  against 
Tammanyism.  But  with  councillors,  and  sen- 
ators and  aldermen,  or  even  with  congress- 
men I  never  bothered  my  head.  Their  election 
seemed  to  be  all  prearranged  and  I  figured  that 
one  vote  more  or  less  wouldn't  make  much 
difference.  I  don't  know  as  I  even  thought 
that  much  about  it;  I  ignored  the  whole  mat- 
ter. What  was  true  of  me  was  true  largely 
of  the  other  men  in  our  old  neighborhood. 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  175 

Politics,  except  perhaps  for  an  abstract  discus- 
sion of  the  tariff,  was  not  a  vital  issue  with 
any  of  us. 

Now  here  I  found  an  emigrant  who  couldn't 
as  yet  qualify  as  a  citizen  knowing  all  the  local 
politicians  by  their  first  names  and  spending 
his  nights  working  for  a  candidate  for  con- 
gress. Evidently  my  arrival  down  here  had 
been  noted  by  those  keen  eyes  which  look  after 
every  single  vote  as  a  miser  does  his  pennies. 
A  man  had  been  found  who  had  at  least  a 
speaking  acquaintance  with  me,  and  plans 
already  set  on  foot  to  round  me  up. 

I  was  inclined  at  first  to  treat  this  new  de- 
velopment as  a  joke.  But  as  Rafferty  talked 
on  he  set  me  to  thinking.  I  didn't  know  any- 
thing about  the  merits  of  the  two  present  can- 
didates but  was  strongly  prejudiced  to  believe 
that  the  Democratic  candidate,  on  general 
principles,  was  the  worst  one.  However  quite 
apart  from  this,  wasn't  Rafferty  to-day  a  better 
citizen  than  I?  Even  admitting  for  the  sake 
of  argument  that  Sweeney  was  a  crook,  wasn't 
Rafferty  who  was  trying  his  humble  best  to 
get  him  elected  a  better  American  than  I  who 
was  willing  to  sit  down  passively  and  allow 
him  to  be  elected?     Rafferty  at  any  fate  was 


I176  ONE  WAY  OUT 

getting  into  the  fight.  His  motive  may  have 
been  selfish  but  I  think  his  interest  really 
sprang  first  from  an  instinctive  desire  to  get 
into  the  game.  Here  he  had  come  to  a  new 
country  where  every  man  had  not  only  the 
chance  to  mix  with  the  afifairs  of  the  ward,  the 
city,  the  state,  the  nation,  but  also  a  good 
chance  to  make  himself  a  leader  in  them. 
Sweeney  himself  was  an  example. 

For  twenty-five  years  or  more  Raflferty's 
countrymen  had  appreciated  this  opportunity 
for  power  and  gone  after  it.  The  result  every- 
one knows.  Their  victory  in  city  politics  at 
least  had  been  so  decisive  year  after  year  that 
the  native  born  had  practically  laid  down  his 
arms  as  I  had.  And  the  reason  for  this  peren- 
nial victory  lay  in  just  this  fact  that  men  like 
Rafferty  were  busy  from  the  time  they  landed 
and  men  like  me  were  lazily  indifferent. 

Three  months  before,  a  dozen  speakers 
couldn't  have  made  me  see  this.  I  had  no 
American  spirit  back  of  me  then  to  make  me 
appreciate  it.  You  might  better  have  talked 
to  a  sleepy  Russian  Jew  a  week  off  the  steamer. 
He  at  least  would  have  sensed  the  sacred 
power  for  liberty  which  the  voting  privilege 
bestows. 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  177 

I  began  to  ask  questions  of  Rafferty  about 
the  two  men.  He  didn't  know  much  about  the 
other  fellow  except  that  he  was  "agin  honest 
labor  and  a  tool  of  the  thrusts."  But  on 
Sweeney  he  grew  eloquent. 

''Sure/'  he  said.  "There's  a  mon  after  ye 
own  heart,  me  biy.  Faith  he's  dug  in  ditches 
himself  an  he  knows  wot  a  full  dinner  pail 
manes." 

"What's  his  business?"  I  asked. 

"A  contracthor,"  he  said.  "He  does  big 
jobs  for  the  city." 

He  let  himself  loose  on  what  Sweeney  pro- 
posed to  do  for  the  ward  if  elected.  He  would 
have  the  government  undertake  the  dredging 
of  the  harbor  thereby  giving  hundreds  of  jobs 
to  the  local  men.  He  would  do  this  thing  and 
that — all  of  which  had  for  their  object  ap- 
parently just  that  one  goal.  It  was  a  direct 
personal  appeal  to  every  man  toiler.  In  addi- 
tion to  this,  Rafferty  let  drop  a  hint  or  two 
that  Sweeney  had  jobs  in  his  own  business 
which  he  filled  discreetly  from  the  ranks  of  the 
wavering.  It  wasn't  more  than  a  month  later, 
by  the  way,  that  Rafferty  himself  was  ap- 
pointed a  foreman  in  the  firm  of  Sweeney 
Brothers. 


178  ONE  WAY  OUT 

But  apart  from  the  merits  of  the  question, 
the  thing  that  impressed  me  was  Rafferty's 
earnestness,  the  dehght  he  took  in  the  contest 
itself,  and  his  activity.  He  was  very  much 
disappointed  when  I  told  him  I  wasn't  even 
registered  in  the  ward  but  he  made  me  prom- 
ise to  look  after  that  as  soon  as  the  lists  were 
again  opened  and  made  an  appointment  for 
the  next  evening  to  take  me  round  to  a  rally 
to  meet  the  boys. 

I  went  and  was  escorted  to  the  home  of  the 
Sweeney  Club.  It  was  a  good  sized  hall  up  a 
long  flight  of  stairs.  Through  the  heavy  blue 
smoke  which  filled  the  room  I  saw  the  walls 
decorated  with  American  flags  and  the  framed 
crayon  portraits  of  Sweeney  and  other  local 
politicians.  Large  duck  banners  proclaimed 
in  black  ink  the  current  catch  lines  of  the  cam- 
paign. At  one  end  there  was  a  raised  plat- 
form, the  rest  of  the  room  was  filled  with 
wooden  settees.  My  first  impression  of  it  all 
was  anything  but  favorable.  It  looked  rather 
tawdry  and  cheap.  The  men  themselves  who 
filled  the  room  were  pretty  tough-looking 
specimens.  I  noticed  a  few  Italians  of  the  fat 
class  and  one  or  two  sharp-faced  Jews,  but  for 
the  most  part  these  men  were  the  cheaper  ele- 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  179 

ment  of  the  second  and  third  generation. 
They  were  the  loafers — the  ward  heelers.  I 
certainly  felt  out  of  place  among  them  and  to 
me  even  Rafferty  looked  out  of  place.  There 
was  a  freshness,  a  bulk  about  him,  that  his 
fellows  here  didn't  have. 

As  he  shoved  his  big  body  through  the 
crowd,  they  greeted  him  by  his  first  name  with 
an  oath  or  a  joke  and  he  beamed  back  at  them 
all  with  a  broad  wave  of  his  hand.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  he  was  a  man  of  some  importance 
here.  He  worked  a  passage  for  me  to  the 
front  of  the  hall  and  didn't  stop  until  he 
reached  a  group  of  about  a  dozen  men  who 
were  all  puffing  away  at  cigars.  In  the  midst 
of  them  stood  a  man  of  about  Rafiferty's  size 
in  frame  but  fully  fifty  pounds  heavier.  He 
had  a  quiet,  good-natured  face.  On  the  whole 
it  was  a  strong  face  though  a  bit  heavy.  His 
eyes  were  everywhere.  He  was  the  first  to 
notice  Rafiferty.     He  nodded  with  a  familiar, 

"Hello,  Dan." 

Dan  seized  my  arm  and  dragged  me  for- 
ward: 

'T  want  ye  to  meet  me  frind.  Mister  Carle- 
ton,"  he  said. 

Sweeney  rested  his  grey  eyes  on  me  a  sec- 


i8o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ond,  saw  that  I  was  a  stranger  here,  and 
stepped  forward  instantly  with  his  big  hand 
outstretched.  He  spoke  without  a  trace  of 
brogue. 

"I'm  very  glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Carleton," 
he  said. 

I  don't  know  that  I'm  easily  impressed  and 
I  flattered  myself  that  I  could  recognize  a  poli- 
tician when  I  saw  one,  but  I  want  to  confess 
that  there  was  something  in  the  way  he 
grasped  my  hand  that  instantly  gave  me  a  dis- 
tinctly friendly  feeling  towards  Sweeney.  I 
should  have  said  right  then  and  there  that  the 
man  wasn't  as  black  as  he  was  painted.  He 
was  neither  oily  nor  sleek  in  his  manner.  We 
chatted  a  minute  and  I  think  he  was  a  bit  sur- 
prised in  me.  He  wanted  to  know  where  I 
lived,  where  I  was  working,  and  how  much  of 
a  family  I  had.  He  put  these  questions  in  so 
frank  and  fatherly  a  fashion  that  they  didn't 
seem  so  impertinent  to  me  at  the  time  as  they 
did  later.  Some  one  called  him  and  as  he 
turned  away,  he  said  to  Rafferty, 

"See  me  before  you  go,  Dan." 

Then  he  said  to  me, 

"I  hope  I'll  see  you  down  here  often,  Carle- 
ton." 


NEW  OPPORTUNITIES  i8i 

With  that  Dan  took  me  around  and  intro- 
duced me  to  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  or  rather 
to  Tim,  Denny  and  Larry.  This  crowd  came 
nearer  to  the  notion  I  had  of  ward  poHticians. 
They  were  a  noisy,  husky-throated  lot,  but 
they  didn't  leave  you  in  doubt  for  a  minute 
but  what  every  mother's  son  of  them  was 
working  for  Sweeney  as  though  they  were 
one  big  family  with  Daddy  Sweeney  at  the 
head.  You  could  overhear  bits  of  plots  and 
counter  plots  on  every  side.  I  was  offered  a 
dozen  cigars  in  as  many  minutes  and  though 
some  of  the  men  rather  shied  away  from  me 
at  first  a  whispered  endorsement  from  Dan  was 
all  that  was  needed  to  bring  them  back. 

There  was  something  contagious  about  it 
and  when  later  the  meeting  itself  opened  and 
Sweeney  rose  to  speak  I  cheered  him  as  heart- 
ily as  anyone.  By  this  time  a  hundred  or  more 
other  men  had  come  in  who  looked  more  out- 
side the  inner  circle.  Sweeney  spoke  simply 
and  directly.  It  was  a  personal  appeal  he 
made,  based  on  promises.  I  listened  with  in- 
terest and  though  it  seemed  to  me  that  many 
of  his  pledges  were  extravagant  he  showed 
such  a  good  spirit  back  of  them  that  his  speech 
on  a  whole  produced  a  favorable  effect. 


i82  ONE  WAY  OUT 

At  any  rate  I  came  away  from  the  meeting 
with  a  stronger  personal  interest  in  pohtics 
than  I  had  ever  felt  in  my  life.  Instead  of 
seeming  like  an  abstruse  or  vague  issue  it 
seemed  to  me  pretty  concrete  and  pretty  vital. 
It  concerned  me  and  my  immediate  neighbors. 
Here  was  a  man  who  was  going  to  Congress 
not  as  a  figurehead  of  his  party  but  to  make 
laws  for  Rafferty  and  for  me.  He  was  to  be 
my  congressman  if  I  chose  to  help  make  him 
such.  He  knew  my  name,  knew  my  occupa- 
tion, knew  that  I  had  a  wife  and  one  child, 
knew  my  address.  And  I  want  to  say  that  he 
didn't  forget  them  either. 

As  I  walked  back  through  the  brightly 
lighted  streets  which  were  still  as  much  alive  as 
at  high  noon,  I  felt  that  after  all  this  was 
my  ward  and  my  city.  I  wasn't  a  mere 
dummy,  I  was  a  member  of  a  vast  corporation. 
I  had  been  to  a  rally  and  had  shaken  hands 
with  Sweeney. 

Ruth's  only  comment  was  a  disgusted  grunt 
as  she  smelled  the  rank  tobacco  in  my  clothes. 
She  kept  them  out  on  the  roof  all  the  next  day. 


CHAPTER   XII 

OUR  FIRST  WINTER 

This  first  winter  was  filled  with  just  about 
as  much  interest  as  it  was  possible  for  three 
people  to  crowd  into  six  or  seven  months.  And 
even  then  there  was  so  much  left  over  which 
we  wanted  to  do  that  we  fairly  groaned  as  we 
saw  opportunity  after  opportunity  slip  by 
which  we  simply  didn't  have  the  time  to  im- 
prove. 

To  begin  with  the  boy,  he  went  at  his  studies 
with  a  zest  that  placed  him  among  the  first 
ten  of  his  class.  Dick  wasn't  a  quick  boy  at 
his  books  and  so  this  stood  for  sheer  hard 
plugging.  To  me  this  made  his  success  all  the 
more  noteworthy.  Furthermore  it  wasn't  the 
result  of  goading  either  from  Ruth  or  myself. 
I  kept  after  him  about  the  details  of  his  school 
life  and  about  the  boys  he  met,  but  I  let  him 
go  his  own  gait  in  his  studies.  I  wanted  to 
see  just  how  the  new  point  of  view  would 
work  out  in  him.     The  result  as  I  saw  it  was 

183 


i84  ONE  WAY  OUT. 

that  every  night  after  supper  he  went  at  his 
problems  not  as  a  mere  school  boy  but 
man-fashion.  He  sailed  in  to  learn.  He  had 
to.  There  was  no  prestige  in  that  school  com- 
ing from  what  the  fathers  did.  No  one  knew 
what  the  fathers  did.  It  didn't  matter.  With 
half  a  dozen  nationalities  in  the  race  the  school 
was  too  cosmopolitan  to  admit  such  local 
issues.  A  few  boys  might  chum  together  feel- 
ing they  were  better  than  the  others,  but  the 
school  as  a  whole  didn't  recognize  them. 
[Each  boy  counted  for  what  he  did — what  he 
was. 

Of  the  other  nine  boys  in  the  first  ten,  four 
were  of  Jewish  origin,  three  were  Irish,  one 
was  Italian,  and  the  other  was  American  born 
but  of  Irish  descent.  Half  of  them  hoped  to 
go  through  college  on  scholarships  and  the 
others  had  equally  ambitious  plans  for  busi- 
ness. The  Jews  were  easily  the  most  brilliant 
Students  but  they  didn't  attempt  anything  else. 
The  Italian  showed  some  literary  ability  and 
wrote  a  little  for  the  school  paper.  The  Amer- 
ican born  Irish  boy  was  made  manager  of  the 
Freshman  football  team.  The  other  four  were 
natural  athletes — two  of  them  played  on  the 
school  eleven  and  the  others  were  just  built 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  185' 

for  track  athletics  and  basket  ball.  Dick  tried 
for  the  eleven  but  he  wasn't  heavy  enough  for 
one  thing  and  so  didn't  make  anything  but  a 
substitute's  position  with  the  freshmen.  I 
was  just  as  well  satisfied.  I  didn't  mind  the 
preliminary  training  but  I  felt  I  would  as  soon 
he  added  a  couple  more  years  to  his  age  before 
he  really  played  football,  even  if  it  was  in  him 
to  play.  My  point  had  been  won  when  he 
went  out  and  tried. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  four  months  in  the 
school  I  thought  I  saw  a  general  improvement 
in  him.  He  held  himself  better  for  one  thing 
— with  his  head  higher  and  his  shoulders  well 
back.  This  wasn't  due  to  his  physical  train- 
ing either.  It  meant  a  changed  mental  atti- 
tude. Ruth  says  she  didn't  notice  any  differ- 
ence and  she  thinks  this  is  nothing  but  my 
imagination.  But  she's  wrong.  I  was  look- 
ing for  something  she  couldn't  see  that  the  boy 
lacked  before.  Dick  to  her  was  always  all 
right.  Of  course  I  knew  myself  that  the  boy 
couldn't  go  far  wrong  whatever  his  training, 
but  I  knew  also  that  his  former  indifferent 
attitude  was  going  to  make  his  path  just  so 
much  harder  for  him.  Dick,  when  he  read 
over   this   manuscript,    said   he   thought   the 


i86  ONE  WAY  OUT 

whole  business  was  foolish  and  that  even  if  I 
wanted  to  tell  the  story  of  my  own  life,  the 
least  I  could  do  was  to  leave  out  him.  But 
his  life  was  more  largely  my  life  than  he  real- 
izes even  now.  And  his  case  was  in  many 
ways  a  better  example  of  the  true  emigrant 
spirit  than  my  own. 

He  joined  the  indoor  track  squad  this  win- 
ter, too,  but  here  again  he  didn't  distinguish 
himself.  He  fought  his  way  into  the  finals  at 
the  interscholastic  meet  but  that  was  all. 
However  this,  too,  was  good  training  for  him. 
I  saw  that  race  myself  and  I  watched  his  mouth 
instead  of  his  legs.  I  liked  the  way  his  jaws 
came  together  on  the  last  lap  though  it  hurt 
to  see  the  look  in  his  eyes  when  he  fell  so  far 
behind  after  trying  so  hard.  But  he  crossed 
the  finish  line. 

In  the  meanwhile  Ruth  was  just  about  the 
busiest  little  woman  in  the  city.  And  yet 
strangely  enough  this  instead  of  dragging  her 
down,  built  her  up.  She  took  on  weight,  her 
cheeks  grew  rosier  than  I  had  seen  them  for 
five  years  and  she  seemed  altogether  happier. 
I  watched  her  closely  because  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  ginger  jar  or  no  ginger  jar  the 
moment  I  saw  a  trace  of  heaviness  in  her  eyes, 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  187 

she  would  have  to  quit  some  of  her  bargain 
hunting.  I  didn't  mean  to  barter  her  good 
health  for  a  few  hundred  dollars  even  if  I  had 
to  remain  a  day  laborer  the  rest  of  my  life. 

That  possibility  didn't  seem  to  me  now  half 
so  terrifying  as  did  the  old  bogey  of  not  get- 
ting a  raise.  I  suppose  for  one  thing  this 
was  because  we  neither  of  us  felt  so  keenly 
the  responsibility  of  the  boy.  In  the  old  days 
we  had  both  thought  that  he  was  doomed  if 
we  didn't  save  enough  to  send  him  through  col- 
lege and  give  him,  at  the  end  of  his  course, 
capital  enough  to  start  in  business  for  himself. 
In  other  words,  Dick  seemed  then  utterly  de- 
pendent upon  us.  It  was  as  terrible  a  thought 
to  think  of  leaving  him  penniless  at  twenty- 
one  as  leaving  him  an  orphan  at  five  months. 
The  burden  of  his  whole  career  rested  on  our 
shoulders. 

But  now  as  I  saw  him  take  his  place  among 
fellows  who  were  born  dependent  upon  them- 
selves, as  I  learned  about  youngsters  at  the 
school  who  at  ten  earned  their  own  living  sell- 
ing newspapers  and  even  went  through  college 
on  their  earnings,  as  I  watched  him  grow 
strong  physically  and  tackle  his  work  aggres- 
sively, I  realized  that  even  if  anything  should 


i88  ONE  WAY  OUT 

happen  to  either  Ruth  or  myself  the  boy  would 
be  able  to  stand  on  his  own  feet.  He  had  the 
whole  world  before  him  down  here.  If  worst 
came  to  worst  he  could  easily  support  himself 
daytimes,  and  at  night  learn  either  a  trade  or 
a  profession.  This  was  not  a  dream  on  my 
part;  I  saw  men  who  were  actually  doing  it. 
I  was  doing  it  myself  for  that  matter.  Per- 
sonally I  felt  as  easy  about  Dick's  future  by 
the  middle  of  that  first  winter  as  though  I  had 
established  an  annuity  for  him  which  would 
assure  him  all  the  advantages  I  had  ever  hoped 
he  might  receive.     So  did  Ruth. 

I  remember  some  horrible  hours  I  passed  in 
that  little  suburban  house  towards  the  end  of 
my  life  there.  Ruth  would  sit  huddled  up  in 
a  chair  and  try  to  turn  my  thoughts  to  other 
things  but  I  could  only  pace  the  floor  when  I 
thought  what  would  happen  to  her  and  the 
boy  if  anything  should  happen  to  me;  or  what 
would  happen  to  the  boy  alone  if  anything 
should  happen  to  the  both  of  us.  The  case  of 
Mrs.  Bonnington  hung  over  me  like  a  night- 
mare and  the  other  possibility  was  even  worse. 
Why,  when  Cummings  came  down  with  pneu- 
monia and  it  looked  for  a  while  as  though  he 
might  die,  I  guess  I  suffered,  by  applying  his 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  189 

case  to  mine,  as  much  as  ever  he  himself  did 
on  his  sick  bed.  I  used  to  inquire  for  his  tem- 
perature every  night  as  though  it  were  my 
own.     So  did  every  man  in  the  neighborhood. 

Sickness  was  a  wicked  misfortune  to  that 
Httle  crowd.  When  death  did  pick  one  of  us, 
the  whole  structure  of  that  family  came  tum- 
bling down  like  a  house  of  cards.  If  by  the 
grace  of  God  the  man  escaped,  he  was  left 
hopelessly  in  debt  by  doctor's  bills  if  in  the 
meanwhile  he  hadn't  lost  his  job.  Sickness 
meant  disaster,  swift  and  terrible  whatever  its 
outcome.  We  ourselves  escaped  it,  to  be  sure,: 
but  I've  sweat  blood  over  the  mere  thought 
of  it. 

Now  if  our  thoughts  ever  took  so  grim  a 
turn,  we  could  speak  quite  calmly  about  it. 
It  was  impossible  for  me  ever  to  think  of  Ruth 
as  sick.  My  mind  couldn't  grasp  that.  But 
occasionally  when  I  have  come  home  wet  and 
Ruth  has  said  something  about  my  getting 
pneumonia  if  I  didn't  look  out,  I've  asked  my- 
self what  this  would  mean.  In  the  first  place 
I  now  could  secure  admission  to  the  best  hos- 
pitals in  the  country  free  of  cost.  I  had  only 
to  report  my  case  to  the  city  physician  and 
if  I  were  sick  enough  to  warrant  it,  he  would 


I90  ONE  WAY  OUT 

notify  the  hospital  and  they  would  send  down 
an  ambulance  for  me.  I  would  be  carried  to 
a  clean  bed  in  a  clean  room  and  would  receive 
such  medical  attention  as  before  I  could  have 
had  only  as  a  millionaire.  Physicians  of  na- 
tional reputation  would  attend  me,  medicines 
would  be  supplied  me,  and  I'd  have  a  night 
and  day  nurse  for  whom  outside  I  would  have 
had  to  pay  some  forty  dollars  a  week.  Not 
only  this  but  if  I  recovered  I  would  be  supplied 
the  most  nourishing  foods  in  the  market  and 
after  that  sent  out  of  town  to  one  of  the  quiet 
convalescent  hospitals  if  my  condition  war- 
ranted it.  I  don't  suppose  a  thousand  dollars 
would  cover  what  here  would  be  given  me  for 
nothing.  And  I  wouldn't  either  be  considered 
or  treated  like  a  charity  patient.  This  was  all 
my  due  as  a  citizen — as  a  toiler.  Of  course 
this  would  be  done  also  for  Dick  as  well  as  for 
Ruth. 

I  don't  mean  to  say  that  such  thoughts  took 
up  much  of  my  time.  I'm  not  morbid  and  we 
never  did  have  any  sickness — we  lived  too 
sanely  for  that.  But  just  as  our  new  view- 
point on  Dick  relieved  us  of  a  tension  which 
before  had  sapped  our  strength,  so  it  was  a 
great  relief  to  have  such  insurance  as  this  in 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  191 

the  background  of  our  minds.  It  took  all  the 
curse  off  sickness  that  it's  possible  to  take 
off.  In  three  or  four  such  ways  as  these  a 
load  of  responsibility  was  removed  from  us 
and  we  were  left  free  to  apply  all  our  energy 
to  the  task  of  upbuilding  which  we  had  in 
hand. 

This  may  account  somewhat  for  the  reserve 
strength  which  Ruth  as  well  as  myself  seemed 
to  tap.  Then  of  course  the  situation  as  a  whole 
was  such  as  to  make  any  woman  with  imagina- 
tion buoyant.  Ruth  had  an  active  part  in 
making  a  big  rosy  dream  come  true.  She  was 
now  not  merely  a  passive  agent.  She  wasn't 
economizing  merely  to  make  the  salary  cover 
the  current  expenses.  Her  task  was  really 
the  vital  one  of  the  whole  undertaking ;  she  was 
accumulating  capital.  When  you  stop  to 
think  of  it  she  was  the  brains  of  the  business ; 
I  was  only  the  machine.  I  dug  the  money  out 
of  the  ground  but  that  wouldn't  have  amounted 
to  much  if  it  had  all  gone  for  nothing  except 
to  keep  the  machine  moving  from  day  to  day. 
The  dollar  she  saved  was  worth  more  than  a 
hundred  dollars  earned  and  spent  again.  It 
was  the  only  dollar  which  counted.  They  say 
a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  earned.     To  my  mind 


192  ONE  WAY  OUT 

a  penny  saved  was  worth  to  us  at  this  time 
every  cent  of  a  dollar. 

So  Ruth  was  not  only  an  active  partner  but 
there  was  another  side  to  the  game  that  ap- 
pealed to  her. 

"The  thing  I  like  about  our  life  down  here," 
she  said  to  me  one  night,  **is  the  chance  it  gives 
me  to  get  something  of  myself  into  every  single 
detail  of  the  home." 

I  didn't  know  what  she  meant  because  it 
seemed  to  me  that  was  just  what  she  had 
always  done.  But  she  shook  her  head  when  I 
said  so. 

"No,"  she  said.     "Not  the  way  I  can  now." 

"Well,  you  didn't  have  a  servant  and  must 
have  done  whatever  was  done,"  I  said. 

"I  didn't  have  time  to  pick  out  the  food  for 
the  table,"  she  said.  "I  had  to  order  it  of  the 
grocery  man.  I  didn't  have  time  to  make  as 
many  of  your  clothes  as  I  wanted.  Why  i 
didn't  even  have  time  to  plan." 

"If  anyone  had  told  me  that  a  woman  could 
do  any  more  than  you  then  were  doing,  I 
should  have  laughed  at  them,"  I  said. 

"You  and  the  boy  weren't  all  my  own  then," 
she  said.  "I  had  to  waste  a  great  deal  of  time 
on  things  outside  the  house.     Sometimes  it 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  193 

used  to  make  me  feel  as  though  you  were  just 
one  of  the  neighbors,  Billy." 

I  began  to  see  what  she  meant.  But  she 
certainly  found  now  just  as  much  time  if  not 
more  to  spare  on  the  women  and  babies  all 
around  us. 

"They  aren't  neighbors/*  she  said.  "They 
are  friends." 

I  suppose  she  felt  like  that  because  what  she 
did  for  them  wasn't  just  wasted  energy  like 
an  evening  at  cards. 

But  she  went  back  again  and  again,  as 
though  it  were  a  song,  to  this  notion  that  our 
new  home  was  all  her  own. 

"You  may  think  me  a  pig,  Billy,"  she  said. 
"But  I  like  it.  I  like  to  pick  out  all  myself,, 
every  single  potato  you  and  the  boy  eat;  I  like 
to  pick  out  every  leaf  of  lettuce,  every  apple. 
It  makes  me  feel  as  though  I  was  doing  some- 
thing for  you." 

"Good  land—"  I  said. 

But  she  wouldn't  let  me  finish. 

"No,  Billy,"  she  said.  "You  don't  under- 
stand what  all  that  means  to  me — how  it  makes 
me  a  part  of  you  and  Dick  as  I  never  was  be- 
fore. And  I  like  to  think  that  in  everything 
you  wear  there's  a  stitch  of  mine  right  close 


194  ONE  WAY  OUT 

to  you.  And  that  when  you  and  the  boy  lie 
down  at  night  I'm  touching  you  because  I 
made  everything  clean  for  you  with  my  own 
hands." 

It  makes  my  throat  grow  lumpy  even  now 
when  I  remember  the  eager,  half-ashamed  way 
she  looked  up  into  my  eyes  as  she  said  this. 
Lord,  sometimes  she  made  me  feel  like  a  little 
child  and  other  times  she  made  me  feel  like  a 
giant.  But  whichever  way  she  made  me  feel 
at  the  moment,  she  always  left  me  wishing 
that  I  had  in  me  every  good  thing  a  man  can 
have  so  that  I  might  be  half  way  worthy  of 
her.  There  are  times  when  a  fellow  knows 
that  as  a  man  he  doesn't  count  for  much  as 
compared  with  any  woman.  And  with  such 
a  woman  as  Ruth — well,  God  knows  I  tried  to 
do  my  best  in  those  days  and  have  tried  to  do 
that  ever  since,  but  it  makes  me  ache  to  think 
how  little  I've  been  able  to  give  her  of  all  she 
deserves. 

In  her  housework  Ruth  had  developed  a  sys- 
tem that  would  have  made  a  fortune  for  any 
man  if  applied  in  the  same  degree  to  his  busi- 
ness. I  learned  a  lot  from  her.  Instead  of 
going  at  her  tasks  in  the  haphazard  fashion  of 
most  women  or  doing  things  just  because  her 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  195 

grandmother  and  her  mother  did  them  a  cer- 
tain way,  she  used  her  head.  I've  already  told 
how  she  did  her  washing  little  by  little  every 
day  instead  of  waiting  for  Monday  and  then 
tearing  herself  all  to  pieces,  and  that's  a  fair 
example  of  her  method.  When  she  was  cook- 
ing breakfast  and  had  a  good  fire,  she'd  have 
half  her  dinner  on  at  the  same  time.  Anything 
that  was  just  as  good  warmed  up,  she'd  do 
then.  She'd  make  her  stews  and  soups  while 
waiting  for  the  biscuits  to  bake  and  boil  her 
rice  or  make  her  cold  puddings  while  we  were 
eating.  When  that  stove  was  working  in  the 
morning  you  couldn't  find  a  square  inch  of  it 
that  wasn't  working.  As  a  result,  she  planned 
never  to  spend  over  half  an  hour  on  her  din- 
ner at  night  and  by  the  time  the  breakfast 
dishes  were  washed  she  was  through  with  her 
cooking  until  then. 

She  used  her  head  even  in  little  things ;  she'd 
make  one  dish  do  the  work  of  three.  She 
never  washed  this  dish  until  she  was  through 
with  it  for  good.  And  she'd  find  the  time  at 
odd  moments  during  her  cooking  to  wash  these 
dishes  as  they  came  along.  If  she  spilled  any- 
thing on  the  floor  she  stopped  right  then  and 
there  and  cleaned  it  up,  with  the  result  that 


196  ONE  WAY  OUT 

when  breakfast  was  served,  the  kitchen  looked 
as  ship-shape  as  when  she  began.  When  she 
was  busy,  she  was  the  busiest  woman  you  ever 
saw.  She  worked  with  her  head,  both  hands, 
and  her  feet.  As  a  result  instead  of  fiddling 
around  all  day,  when  she  was  through  she  was 
through. 

When  she  got  up  in  the  morning  she  knew 
exactly  what  she  had  to  do  for  the  day,  just 
how  she  was  going  to  do  it  and  just  when  she 
was  going  to  do  it.  And  you  could  bank  that 
the  things  at  night  would  be  done,  and  be  done 
just  as  she  had  planned.  She  thought  ahead. 
That's  a  great  thing  to  master  in  any  business. 

In  my  own  work,  the  plan  I  had  outlined  for 
myself  I  developed  day  by  day.  At  the  end  of 
three  months  I  found  that  even  what  little 
Italian  I  had  then  learned  was  a  help  to  me. 
The  mere  fact  that  I  was  studying  their  lan- 
guage placed  me  on  a  better  footing  with  my 
fellows.  They  seemed  to  receive  it  as  a  com- 
pliment and  to  feel  that  I  was  taking  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  them  as  a  race.  My  desire 
to  practise  my  few  phrases  was  always  a  letter 
of  introduction  to  a  newcomer. 

I  talked  with  them  about  everything — 
where  they  came  from,  what  made  them  come^ 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  197 

what  they  did  before  they  came,  how  long  they 
worked  and  what  pay  they  got  in  Italy,  how 
they  saved  to  get  over  here,  how  they  secured 
their  jobs,  what  they  hoped  to  do  eventually, 
where  they  lived,  how  large  their  families 
were,  how  much  it  cost  them  to  live  and  what 
they  ate.  I  inquired  as  to  what  they  liked 
and  what  they  disliked  about  their  work ;  what 
they  considered  fair  and  what  unfair  about  the 
labor  and  the  pay;  what  they  liked  and  didn't 
like  about  the  foreman.  Often  I  couldn't  get 
any  opinion  at  all  out  of  them  on  these  sub- 
jects ;  often  it  wasn't  honest  and  often  it  wasn't 
intelligent.  But  as  with  my  other  question- 
ing when  I  sifted  it  all  down  and  thought  it 
over,  I  was  surprised  at  how  much  information 
I  did  get.  If  I  didn't  learn  facts  which  could 
be  put  into  words,  I  was  left  with  a  very  defi- 
nite impression  and  a  very  wide  general 
knowledge. 

In  the  meanwhile  my  note  book  was  always 
busy.  I  kept  jotting  down  names  and  ad- 
dresses with  enough  running  comment  to  help 
me  to  recall  the  men  individually.  I  wasn't 
able  to  locate  one  out  of  ten  of  these  men  later 
but  the  tenth  man  was  worth  all  the  trouble. 

As  the  winter  advanced  and  the  air  grew 


198  ONE  WAY  OUT 

frosty  and  the  snow  and  ice  came,  the  work 
in  a  good  many  ways  was  harder.  And  yet 
everything  considered  I  don't  know  but  what 
I'd  rather  work  outdoors  at  zero  than  at  eighty- 
five.  Except  that  my  hands  got  numb  and 
everything  was  more  difficult  to  handle  I  didn't 
mind  the  cold.  There  was  generally  exercise 
enough  to  keep  the  blood  moving. 

We  had  a  variety  of  work  before  spring. 
After  the  subway  job  I  shifted  to  a  big  house 
foundation  and  there  met  another  group  of 
skilled  workmen  from  whom  I  learned  much. 
The  work  was  easier  and  the  surroundings 
pleasanter  if  you  can  speak  of  pleasant  sur- 
roundings about  a  hole  in  the  ground.  The 
soil  was  easier  to  handle  and  we  went  to  no 
great  depth.  Here  too  I  met  a  new  gang  of 
laborers.  I  missed  many  familiar  faces  out 
of  the  old  crowd  and  found  some  interesting 
new  men.  Rafferty  had  gone  and  I  was  sorry. 
I  saw  more  or  less  of  him  however  during  the 
winter  for  he  dropped  around  now  and  then 
on  Sunday  evenings.  I  don't  think  he  ever 
forgot  the  incident  of  the  sewer  gas. 

I  enjoyed  too  every  hour  in  my  night  school. 
I  found  here  a  very  large  per  cent,  of  foreign- 
ers and  they  were  naturally  of  the  more  ambi- 


OUR  FIRST  WINTER  199 

tious  type.  I  found  I  had  a  great  deal  to  learn 
even  in  the  matter  of  spreading  mortar  and 
using  a  trowel.  It  was  really  fascinating 
work  and  in  the  instructor  I  made  an  invalu- 
able friend.  Through  him  I  was  able  to 
arrange  my  scattered  fragments  of  informa- 
tion into  larger  groups.  Little  by  little  I  told 
him  something  of  my  plan  and  he  was  very 
much  interested  in  it.  He  gave  me  many  val- 
uable suggestions  and  later  proved  of  substan- 
tial help  in  more  ways  than  one. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN 

As  I  said,  there  were  still  many  opportuni- 
ties which  I  didn't  have  time  to  improve. 
The  three  of  us  seemed  to  have  breathed  in 
down  here  some  spirit  which  left  us  almost 
feverish  in  our  desire  to  learn.  Whether  it 
was  the  opportunity  which  bred  the  desire  or 
the  desire  as  expressed  by  all  these  newcom- 
ers, fresh  from  the  shackles  of  their  old  lives, 
which  created  the  opportunity,  I  leave  to  the 
students  of  such  matters.  All  I  know  is  that 
we  were  offered  the  best  in  practical  in- 
formation, such  as  the  trade  schools  and  the 
night  high  schools;  the  best  in  art,  the  best 
in  music,  the  best  in  the  drama.  I  am  speak- 
ing always  of  the  newcomer — the  emigrant. 
Sprinkled  in  with  these  was  the  cheaper  element 
of  the  native-born,  whether  of  foreign  or  of 
American  descent,  who  spent  their  evenings  on 
the  street  or  at  the  cheap  theatres  or  in  the  bar- 
rooms.    This  class  despised  the  whole  busi- 

200 


i 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  201 

tiess.  Incidentally  these  were  the  men  who 
haunted  the  bread  line,  the  Salvation  Army 
barracks,  and  were  the  first  to  join  in  any  pub- 
lic demonstration  against  the  rich.  The 
women,  not  always  so  much  by  their  own  fault, 
were  the  type  which  keeps  the  charitable  asso- 
ciations busy.  I'm  not  saying  that  among 
these  there  were  not  often  cases  of  sheer  hard 
luck.  Now  and  then  sickness  played  the  devil 
with  a  family  and  more  often  the  cussedness 
of  some  one  member  dragged  down  a  half 
dozen  innocent  ones  with  him,  but  I  do  say 
that  when  misfortune  did  come  to  this  particu- 
lar class  they  didn't  buck  up  to  it  as  Helen 
Bonnington  did  or  use  such  means  as  were  at 
their  disposal  to  pull  out  of  it.  They  just 
caved  in.  Even  in  their  daily  lives,  when 
things  were  going  well  with  them,  they  lost  in 
the  glitter  and  glare  of  the  city  that  spark 
which  my  middle-class  friends  lost  by  stagna- 
tion. 

Because  there  was  no  poetic  romance  left  in 
their  own  lives,  they  despised  it  in  the  lives  of 
others  and  laughed  at  it  in  art.  Whatever 
went  back  into  the  past,  they  looked  upon 
scornfully  as  "ancient."  They  lived  each  day 
as  it  came  with  a  pride  in  being  up-to-date. 


202  ONE  WAY  OUT 

As  a  result,  they  preferred  musical  comedy  o£ 
the  horse  play  kind  to  real  music;  they  pre- 
ferred cheap  melodrama  to  Shakespere.  They 
lived  and  breathed  the  spirit  of  the  yellow  jour- 
nals. 

I  don't  know  what  sort  of  an  education  it  is 
the  Italians  come  over  here  with,  but  they  were 
a  constant  surprise  to  me  in  their  appreciation 
of  the  best  in  art.  And  it  was  genuine — it 
was  simple.  I've  heard  a  good  many  jokes 
about  the  foolishness  of  giving  them  a  diet  of 
Shakespere  and  Beethoven,  of  Maeterlinck  and 
Mascagni,  but  that  sort  of  talk  comes  either 
from  the  outsiders  or  from  the  Great  White 
Way  crowd.  When  you've  seen  Italians  not 
only  crowd  in  to  the  free  productions  down 
here  but  have  seen  them  put  up  good  money  to 
attend  the  best  theatres;  when  you've  heard 
them  whistle  grand  opera  at  their  work  and 
save  hard  earned  dollars  to  spend  on  it  down 
town;  when  you've  seen  them  crowd  the  art 
museums  on  free  days  and  spend  a  half  dollar 
to  look  at  some  private  exhibition  of  a  fellow 
countryman's,  you  begin  to  think,  if  you're 
honest,  that  the  laugh  is  on  you.  They  made 
me  feel  ashamed  not  only  because  I  was  igno- 
rant but  because  after  I  became  more  familiar 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  203 

with  the  works  of  the  masters  I  was  slower 
than  they  to  appreciate  them.  In  many  cases  I 
couldn't.  I  didn't  flatter  myself  either  that 
this  was  because  of  my  superior  frankness  or 
up-to-dateness.  I  knew  well  enough  that  it 
was  because  of  a  lack  in  me  and  my  ancestors. 
Scarcely  a  week  passed  when  there  wasn't 
something  worth  seeing  or  hearing  presented 
to  these  people.  It  came  either  through  a  set- 
tlement house  or  through  the  generosity  of 
some  interested  private  patron.  However  it 
came,  it  was  always  through  the  medium  of  a 
class  which  until  now  had  been  only  a  name 
to  me.  This  was  the  independently  well-to-do 
American  class — the  Americans  who  had 
partly  made  and  partly  inherited  their  fortunes 
and  had  not  yet  come  to  misuse  them.  It  is  a 
class  still  active  in  American  life,  running  how- 
ever more  to  the  professions  than  to  business. 
Many  of  their  family  names  have  been  familiar 
in  history  to  succeeding  generations  since  the 
early  settlement  of  New  England.  They  were 
intellectual  leaders  then  and  they  are  intellec- 
tual leaders  now.  If  I  could  with  propriety 
I'd  like  to  give  here  a  list  of  half  a  dozen  of 
these  men  and  women  who  came,  in  time,  to 
revive  for  me  my  belief  that  after  all  there  still 


204  ONE  WAY  OUT 

is  left  in  this  country  the  backbone  of  a  worthy 
old  stock.  But  they  don't  need  any  such  triv- 
ial tribute  as  I  might  give  them.  The  thing 
that  struck  me  at  once  about  them  was  that 
they  were  still  finding  an  outlet  for  their 
pioneer  instinct  not  only  in  their  professions 
and  their  business,  but  in  the  interest  they 
took  in  the  new  pioneer.  Shoulder  to  shoul- 
der with  the  modern  Pilgrims  they  were  push- 
ing forward  their  investigations  in  medicine, 
in  science,  in  economics.  They  were  adapting 
old  laws  to  new  conditions;  they  were  devel- 
oping the  new  West ;  they  were  the  new  think- 
ers and  the  new  politicians. 

I  don't  suppose  that  if  I  had  lived  for  fifty 
years  under  the  old  conditions  I  would  have 
met  one  of  them.  There  was  no  meeting 
ground  for  us,  for  we  hM  nothing  in  common. 
I  couldn't  possibly  interest  them  and  I'm  sure  I 
was  too  busy  with  my  own  troubles  to  take 
any  interest  in  them  even  if  I  had  known  of 
their  existence. 

Even  down  here  I  resented  at  first  their  pres- 
ence as  an  intrusion.  Whenever  I  met  them 
I  was  inclined  to  play  the  cad  and  there's  no 
bigger  cad  on  the  face  of  the  earth  than  a 
workingman  who  is  beginning  to  feel  his  oats. 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  205 

But  as  I  watched  them  and  saw  how  earnest 
they  were  and  how  really  valuable  their  efforts 
were  I  was  able  to  distinguish  them  from  still 
another  crowd  who  flaunted  their  silly  charities 
in  the  newspapers.  But  these  other  quiet  men 
and  women  were  of  different  calibre;  they 
were  the  ones  who  established  pure  milk  sta- 
tions, who  encouraged  the  young  men  of  real 
talent  like  Giuseppe,  and  who  headed  all  the 
real  work  for  good  done  down  here. 

They  came  into  my  life  when  I  needed  them ; 
when  perhaps  I  was  swinging  too  far  in  my 
belief  that  the  emigrant  was  the  only  force 
for  progress  in  our  nation.  I  know  they 
checked  me  in  some  wild  thinking  in  which  I 
was  beginning  to  indulge. 

I  find  I  have  been  wandering  a  little.  But 
what  we  thought,  counted  for  as  much  towards 
the  goal  as  what  we  did  and  even  if  the  think- 
ing is  only  that  of  one  man — and  an  ordinary 
man  at  that — why,  so  for  that  matter  was  the 
whole  venture.  I  want  to  say  again  that  all 
I'm  trying  to  do  is  to  put  down  as  well  as  I 
can  remember  and  as  well  as  I  am  able,  my 
own  acts  and  thoughts  and  nothing  but  my 
own.  Of  course  that  means  Ruth's  and 
Dick's  too  as  far  as  I  understood  them,  for 


2o6  ONE  WAY  OUT 

they  were  a  part  of  my  own.  I  don't  want 
what  I  write  to  be  taken  as  the  report  of  an 
investigation  but  just  as  the  diary  of  one  man's 
experience. 

If  I  had  had  the  time  I  could  have  seen  at  least 
two  of  Shakespere's  plays — presented  by  ama- 
teurs, to  be  sure,  but  amateurs  with  talent  and 
enthusiasm  and  guided  by  professionals.  I 
could  have  heard  at  least  a  half  dozen  good 
readers  read  from  the  more  modern  classics. 
I  could  have  listened  to  as  many  concerts  by 
musicians  of  good  standing.  I  could  have 
heard  lectures  on  a  dozen  subjects  of  vital  in- 
terest. Then  there  were  entertainments  de- 
signed confessedly  to  entertain.  In  addition 
to  these  there  were  many  more  lectures  in  the 
city  itself  open  free  to  the  public  and  which  I 
now  for  the  first  time  learned  about.  There 
was  one  series  in  particular  which  was  ad- 
dressed once  a  week  by  men  of  international 
renown.  It  was  a  liberal  education  in  itself. 
Many  of  my  neighbors  attended. 

But  as  for  Dick  he  was  too  busy  with  his 
studies  and  Ruth  was  too  glad  to  sit  at  home 
and  watch  him,  to  go  out  at  night. 

What  spare  time  I  myself  had  I  began  to 
devote  to  a  new  interest.     Rafiferty  had  first 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  207 

roused  me  to  my  duty  as  a  citizen  in  the  mat- 
ter of  local  politics  and  through  the  winter 
called  often  enough  to  keep  my  interest  whet- 
ted. But  even  without  him  I  couldn't  have 
escaped  the  question.  Politics  was  a  live  issue 
down  here  every  day  in  the  year.  One  cam- 
paign was  no  sooner  ended  than  another  was 
begun.  Sweeney  was  no  sooner  elected  than 
he  began  to  lay  wires  for  his  fellows  in  the 
coming  city  election  who  in  their  turn  would 
sustain  him  in  whatever  further  political  ambi- 
tions he  might  have.  If  the  hold  the  boss  had 
on  a  ward  or  a  city  was  a  mystery  to  me  at 
first,  it  didn't  long  remain  so.  The  secret  of 
his  power  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  never  let  go. 
He  was  at  work  every  day  in  the  year  and  he 
had  an  organization  with  which  he  could  keep 
in  touch  through  his  lieutenants  whether  he 
was  in  Washington  or  at  home.  Sweeney's 
personality  was  always  right  there  in  his  ward 
wherever  his  body  might  be. 

The  Sweeney  Club  rooms  were  always  open. 
Night  after  night  you  could  find  his  trusted 
men  there.  Here  the  man  out  of  a  job  came 
and  from  here  was  recommended  to  one  con- 
tractor or  another  or  to  the  "city";  here  the 
man  with  the  sick  wife  came  to  have  her  sent 


2o8  ONE  WAY  OUT 

to  some  hospital  which  perhaps  for  some  rea- 
son would  not  ordinarily  receive  her;  here  the 
men  in  court  sent  their  friends  for  bail;  here 
came  those  with  bigger  plans  afoot  in  the  mat- 
ter of  special  contracts.  If  Sweeney  couldn't 
get  them  what  they  wanted,  he  at  least  sent 
them  away  with  a  feeling  of  deep  obligation 
to  him.  Naturally  then  when  election  time 
came  around  these  people  obeyed  Sweeney's 
order.  It  wasn't  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
a  campaign  speech  or  two  could  affect  their 
loyalty. 

Of  course  the  rival  party  followed  much  the 
same  methods  but  the  man  in  power  had  a 
tremendous  advantage.  The  only  danger  he 
needed  to  fear  was  a  split  in  his  own  faction 
as  some  young  man  loomed  up  with  ambitions 
that  moved  faster  than  Sweeney's  own  for 
him.  Such  a  man  I  began  to  suspect — though 
it  was  looking  a  long  way  into  the  future — 
was  Rafiferty.  That  winter  he  took  out  his 
naturalization  papers  and  soon  afterwards  he 
began  an  active  campaign  for  the  Common 
Council.  It  was  partly  my  interest  in  him  and 
partly  a  new  sense  of  duty  I  felt  towards  the 
whole  game  that  made  me  resolve  to  have  a 
hand  in  this.     I  owed  that  much  to  the  ward 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  209 

in  which  I  lived  and  which  was  doing  so  much 
for  me. 

In  talking  with  some  of  the  active  settlement 
workers  down  here,  I  found  tHem  as  strongly- 
prejudiced  against  the  party  in  power  as  I  had 
been  and  when  I  spoke  to  them  of  Rafferty 
I  found  him  damned  in  their  eyes  as  soon  as  I 
mentioned  his  party. 

*'The  whole  system  is  corrupt  from  top  to 
bottom/'  said  the  head  of  one  settlement  house 
to  me. 

"Are  you  doing  anything  to  remedy  it?"  I 
asked. 

"What  can  you  do?"  he  said.  "We  are  do- 
ing the  only  thing  possible — we're  trying  to 
get  hold  of  the  youngsters  and  give  them  a 
higher  sense  of  civic  virtue." 

"That's  good,"  I  said,  "but  you  don't  get 
hold  of  one  in  ten  of  the  coming  voters.  And 
you  don't  get  hold  of  one  in  a  hundred  of  the 
coming  politicians.  Why  don't  you  take  hold 
of  a  man  like  Dan  who  is  bound  to  get  power 
some  day  and  talk  a  little  civic  virtue  into  him.'* 

"You  said  he  was  a  Democrat  and  a  machine 
man,"  said  he,  as  though  that  settled  it. 

"I  don't  see  any  harm  in  either  fact,"  I  said, 
"if  you  get  at  the  good  in  him.     A  good  Dem- 


210  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ocrat  is  a  good  citizen  and  a  good  machine  is 
a  good  power,"  I  said. 

The  man  smiled. 

*'You  don't  know,"  he  said. 

"Do  you  know  ?"  I  asked.  "Have  you  been 
to  the  ralHes  and  met  the  men  and  studied  their 
methods  ?" 

"All  you  have  to  do  is  to  read  the  papers,'* 
he  answered. 

"I  don't  think  so,"  I  said.  "To  beat  an 
enemy  you  ought  to  study  him  at  first  hand. 
You  ought  to  find  out  the  good  as  well  as  the 
bad  in  him.  You  ought  to  find  out  where  he 
gets  his  power." 

"Graft  and  patronage,"  he  answered. 

"What  about  the  other  party?"  I  said. 

"Just  as  bad." 

"Then  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 
I  asked. 

"Our  only  hope  is  education,"  he  said. 

"Then,"  I  said,  "why  not  educate  the 
young  politicians?  Get  to  know  Rafferty — 
he's  young  and  simple  and  honest  now.  Help 
him  to  advance  honestly  and  keep  him  that 
way." 

He  shook  his  Hea3  doubtfully  but  he  agreed 
to  have  a  talk  with  Dan.     In  the  meanwhile 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  211 

I  had  a  talk  with  Dan  myself.  I  told  him 
what  my  scheme  was. 

**Dan,"  I  said,  "you  must  decide  right  at 
the  beginning  of  your  career  whether  you're 
going  to  be  just  a  tool  of  Sweeney's  or  whether 
you're  going  to  stand  on  your  own  feet." 

''Phot's  the  mather  with  Sweeney,  now?" 
he  asked. 

"In  some  ways  he's  all  right,"  I  said.  "And 
in  other  ways  he  isn't.  But  anyhow  he's  your 
boss  and  you  have  to  do  what  he  tells  you 
to  do  just  as  though  he  was  your  landlord 
back  in  Ireland  and  you  nothing  but  a  ten- 
ant." 

"Eh?"  he  said  looking  up  quick. 

I  thought  I'd  strike  a  sore  spot  there  and  I 
made  the  most  of  it.  I  talked  along  like  this 
for  a  half  hour  and  I  saw  his  lips  come  to- 
gether. 

"He'd  knife  me,"  he  said  finally.  "He's 
sore  now  'cause  I'm  afther  wantin'  to  run  for 
the  council  this  year." 

I  had  heard  the  rumor. 

"Then,"  I  said,  "why  don't  you  pull  free 
and  make  a  little  machine  of  your  own.  Some 
of  the  boys  will  stand  by  you,  won't  they  ?" 

"Will  they?"  he  grinned. 


212  ONE  WAY  OUT 

With  that  I  took  him  around  to  the  settle- 
ment house.  Dan  Hstened  good  naturedly  to 
a  lot  of  talk  he  didn't  understand  but  he  lis- 
tened with  more  interest  to  a  lot  of  talk  about 
the  needs  of  the  district  which  it  was  now  get- 
ting cheated  out  of,  which  he  did  understand. 
,And  incidentally  the  man  who  at  first  did  all 
the  talking  in  the  end  listened  to  Dan.  After 
the  latter  had  gone,  he  turned  to  me  and  said: 

''I  like  that  fellow  Rafferty." 

That  seemed  to  me  the  really  important  thing 
and  right  there  and  then  we  sat  down  and 
worked  out  the  basis  of  the  "Young  American 
Political  Club."  Our  object  was  to  reach  the 
young  voter  first  of  all  and  through  him  to 
reach  the  older  ones.  To  this  end  we  had  a 
''Committee  on  Boys"  and  a  "Committee  on 
Naturalization."  I  insisted  from  the  begin- 
ning that  we  must  have  an  organization  as 
perfect  as  that  of  any  political  machine.  Un- 
til we  felt  our  strength  a  little  however,  I 
suggested  it  was  best  to  limit  our  efforts  to 
the  districts  alone.  We  took  a  map  of  the 
city  and  we  cut  up  the  districts  into  blocks 
with  a  young  man  at  the  head  of  each  block. 
He  was  to  make  a  list  of  all  the  young  voters 
and  keep  as  closely  in  touch  as  possible  with 


i 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  213 

the  political  gossip  of  both  parties.  Over  him 
there  was  to  be  a  street  captain  and  over  him 
a  district  captain  and  finally  a  president. 

All  this  was  the  result  of  slow  and  careful 
study.  All  the  workers  down  here  fell  in  with 
the  plan  eagerly  and  one  of  them  agreed  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  a  hall  any  time  we  wished 
to  use  one  for  campaign  purposes.  At  first 
our  efforts  passed  unnoticed  by  either  political 
party.  It  was  thought  to  be  just  another  fan- 
ciful civic  dream.  We  were  glad  of  it.  It 
gave  us  time  to  perfect  our  organization  with- 
out interference. 

This  business  took  up  all  the  time  I  could 
spare  during  the  winter.  But  instead  of  find- 
ing it  a  drag  I  found  it  an  inspiration.  They 
insisted  upon  making  me  president  of  the  Club 
and  though  I  would  rather  have  had  a  younger 
man  at  its  head  I  accepted  the  honor  with  a 
feeling  of  some  pride.  It  was  the  first  public 
office  I  had  ever  held  and  it  gave  me  a  new 
sense  of  responsibility  and  a  better  sense  of 
citizenship. 

In  the  meanwhile  Dan  made  no  open  break 
with  Sweeney  but  it  soon  became  clear  that 
he  was  not  in  such  good  favor  as  before.  Al- 
though we  had  not  yet  openly  endorsed  his 


214  ONE  WAY  OUT 

candidacy  we  were  doing  a  good  deal  of  talk- 
ing for  him.  I  received  several  visits  from 
Sweeney's  lieutenants  who  tried  to  find  out  just 
what  we  were  about.  My  answer  invariably 
was  *'No  partisanship  but  clean  politics." 

When  it  came  time  to  register  I  was  forced 
to  register  with  one  of  the  two  parties  in  order 
to  take  any  part  in  the  primaries.  I  registered 
as  a  Democrat  for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  I 
also  attended  a  primary  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life.  I  also  felt  a  new  power  back  of  me 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  Little  by  little 
Dan  had  come  to  be  an  issue.  Sweeney  did 
not  openly  declare  himself  but  it  was  soon  evi- 
dent that  he  had  come  to  the  primaries  pre- 
pared to  knife  Rafferty  if  it  were  possible. 
Back  of  Dan  stood  his  large  personal  follow- 
ing; back  of  me  stood  the  balance  of  power. 
Sweeney  saw  it,  gave  the  nod,  and  Dan  was 
nominated. 

Six  weeks  later  he  was  elected,  too.  You'd 
have  thought  he  had  been  elected  mayor  by 
the  noise  the  small  boys  made.  Rafiferty  came 
to  me  with  his  big  paw  outstretched, 

"Carleton,"  he  said,  "the  only  thing  I've  got 
agin  ye  is  thot  ye  ain't  an  Irishmon.  Faith, 
ye'd  make  a  domd  foine  Irishmon." 


I  BECOME  A  CITIZEN  215 

"It's  up  to  you  now,"  I  said,  "to  make  a 
damned  fine  American." 

It  wasn't  more  than  two  months  later  that 
Dan  came  to  me  to  ask  my  opinion  on  a  request 
of  Sweeney's.  It  looked  a  bit  off  color  and  I 
said  so. 

"You  can't  do  it,  Dan,"  I  said. 

"It  manes  throuble,"  he  said. 

"Let  it  come.  We're  back  of  you  with  both 
feet." 

Dan  followed  my  advice  and  the  trouble 
came.  He  was  fired  from  his  job  as  foreman 
under  Sweeney. 

But  you  can't  keep  down  as  good  a  foreman 
as  Dan  was  and  he  had  another  job  within  a 
week. 

A  few  months  later  I  had  another  job  my- 
self. I  was  made  foreman  with  my  own  firm 
at  a  wage  of  two  dollars  and  a  half  a  day. 
When  I  went  back  and  announced  this  to 
Ruth,  she  cried  a  little.  Truly  our  cup  seemed 
full  and  running  over. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK 

My  first  thought  when  I  received  my  ad- 
vance in  pay  was  that  I  could  now  reheve  Ruth 
of  some  of  her  burdens.  There  was  no  longer 
any  need  of  her  spending  so  much  time  in  trot- 
ting around  the  markets  and  the  department 
stores.  Nor  was  there  any  need  of  her  doing 
so  much  plotting  and  planning  in  her  endeavor 
to  save  a  penny.  Furthermore  I  was  deter- 
mined that  she  should  now  enjoy  some  of  the 
little  luxuries  of  life  in  the  way  of  better  things 
to  wear  and  better  things  to  eat.  But  that  idea 
was  taken  out  of  me  in  short  order. 

"No,"  she  said,  as  soon  as  she  recovered 
from  the  good  news.  "We  mustn't  spend  one 
cent  more  than  we've  been  spending." 

"But  look  here,"  I  said;  "what's  the  good 
of  a  raise  if  we  don't  use  it?" 

"What's  the  good  of  a  raise  if  we  spend  it?" 
she  asked  me.  "We'll  use  it,  Billy,  but  we'll 
use  it  wisely.     How  many  times  have  you  told 

216 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       217 

me  that  if  you  had  your  life  to  Hve  over  again 
you  wouldn't  spend  one  cent  over  the  first  sal- 
ary you  received,  if  it  was  only  three  dollars 
a  week,  until  you  had  a  bank  account?" 

*1  know  that,"  I  said.  "But  when  a  man 
has  a  wife  and  boy  like  you  and  Dick — " 

*'He  doesn't  want  to  turn  them  into  burdens 
that  will  hold  him  down  all  his  life,"  she  broke 
in.  "It  isn't  fair  to  the  wife  and  boy,"  she 
said. 

I  couldn't  quite  follow  her  reasoning  but  I 
didn't  have  to.  When  I  came  home  the  next 
Saturday  night  with  fifteen  dollars  in  my 
pocket  instead  of  nine  she  calmly  took  out 
three  for  the  rent,  five  for  household  expenses 
and  put  seven  in  the  ginger  jar.  I  suggested 
that  at  least  we  have  one  celebration  and  with 
the  boy  go  to  the  little  French  restaurant  we 
used  to  visit,  but  she  held  up  her  hands  in 
horror. 

"Do  you  think  I'd  spend  two  dollars  and  a 
half  for — why,  Billy,  you  wouldn't!" 

"I'd  like  to  spend  ten,"  I  said.  "I'd  like  to 
go  there  to  dinner  and  buy  you  a  half  dozen 
roses  and  get  the  three  best  seats  in  the  best 
theater  in  town,"  I  said. 

She  came  to  my  side  and  patted  my  arm. 


2i8  ONE  WAY  OUT 

'Thank  you,  Billy,"  she  said.  "But  honest 
— it's  just  as  much  fun  to  have  you  want  to  do 
those  things  as  really  do  them." 

I  believe  she  meant  it.  I  wouldn't  believe  it 
of  anyone  else  but  for  a  week  she  talked  about 
that  dinner  and  those  flowers  and  the  theater 
until  she  had  me  wondering  if  we  hadn't  actu- 
ally gone.     Dick  thought  we  were  crazy. 

And  so,  just  as  usual,  after  this  she'd  take 
her  basket  and  start  out  two  or  three  mornings 
a  week  and  walk  with  me  as  far  as  the  market. 
She'd  spend  an  hour  here  and  then  if  she 
needed  anything  more  she'd  go  down  town  to 
the  big  stores  and  wander  around  here  for  an- 
other hour.  But  Saturday  nights  was  her 
great  bargain  opportunity.  If  I  couldn't  go 
with  her  she'd  take  Dick  and  the  two  would 
plan  to  get  there  at  about  nine  o'clock.  From 
this  time  on  she  often  picked  up  for  a  song  odd 
ends  of  meat  and  good  vegetables  which  the 
market  men  didn't  want  to  carry  over  to  Mon- 
day. In  fact  they  had  to  sell  out  these  things 
as  their  stock  at  the  beginning  of  the  week  had 
to  be  fresh.  I  suppose  marketing  at  this  time 
of  day  would  be  a  good  deal  of  a  hardship  for 
those  living  in  the  suburbs  but  it  was  a  reg- 
ular  lark  for  her.     Most   everyone  is   good 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       219 

natured  on  Saturday  night  if  on  no  other 
night.  The  week's  work  is  done  and  people 
have  enough  money  from  their  pay  enve- 
lopes to  feel  rich  for  a  few  hours  anyway. 
Then  there  were  the  lights  and  the  crowd  and 
the  shouting  so  that  it  was  like  twenty  country 
fairs  rolled  into  one. 

After  the  exitement  of  coming  home  Satur- 
days with  so  much  money  wore  off,  I  began 
to  forget  that  I  was  earning  fifteen  instead 
of  nine.  If  Ruth  had  spent  it  on  the 
table  I'm  sure  I'd  have  forgotten  it  even  more 
quickly.  I  was  getting  all  I  wanted  to  eat, 
was  warm  and  had  a  good  clean  bed  to  sleep 
in  and  what  more  can  a  man  have  even  if 
he's  earning  a  hundred  a  week?  I  think 
people  are  very  apt  to  forget  that  after  all 
a  millionaire  can  spend  only  about  so  much 
on  himself.  And  after  the  newness  of  fresh 
toys  has  worn  off — like  steam  yachts  and 
private  cars — he  is  forced  to  be  satisfied  with 
just  what  I  had,  no  matter  how  much  more 
money  he  makes.  He  has  only  his  five  senses 
and  once  these  are  satisfied  he's  no  better  off 
than  a  man  who  satisfies  these  same  senses  on 
eight  dollars  a  week.  Generally  he's  worse  off 
because  in  a  year  or  so  he  has  probably  dulled 


220  ONE  WAY  OUT 

them  all.  Rockefeller  himself  probably  never 
in  his  life  got  half  the  fun  out  of  anything 
that  I  did  in  just  crawling  into  my  clean  bed 
at  night  with  every  tired  muscle  purring  con- 
tentedly and  my  mind  at  rest  about  the  next 
day.  I  doubt  if  he  knows  the  joy  of  wak- 
ing up  in  the  morning  rested  and  hungry. 
The  only  advantage  he  had  over  me  that  I  can 
see  is  the  power  he  had  to  help  others.  In 
a  way  I  don't  believe  he  found  any  greater 
opportunity  even  for  that  than  Ruth  found 
right  here. 

For  those  interested  in  the  details  I'm  go- 
ing to  give  another  quotation  from  Ruth's 
note  book.  But  to  my  mind  these  details 
aren't  the  important  part  of  our  venture. 
The  thing  that  counted  was  the  spirit  back 
of  them.  It  isn't  the  fact  that  we  lived  on 
from  six  to  eight  dollars  a  week  or  the  sta- 
tistics of  how  we  lived  on  that  which  makes 
my  life  worth  telling  about  if  it  is  worth 
telling  about.  In  the  first  place  prices  vary 
in  different  localities  and  shift  from  year  to 
year.  In  fact  since  we  began  they  have  al- 
most doubled.  In  the  second  place  people 
have  lived  and  are  living  to-day  on  less  than  we 
did.     I  give  our  figures  simply  to  satisfy  the 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       221 

curious  and  to  show  how  Ruth  planned.  But 
no  one  could  do  as  she  did  or  do  as  we  did 
merely  by  aping  her  little  economies,  or  ac- 
cepting the  result  of  them.  Either  they  would 
find  the  task  impossible  or  look  upon  it  as  a 
privation  and  endure  it  as  martyrs.  In  this 
mood  they  wouldn't  last  a  week.  I  know  that 
people  who  read  this  without  at  least  a  germ  of 
the  pioneer  in  them  will  either  smile  or  shrug 
their  shoulders.  I've  met  plenty  of  this  sort. 
I  met  them  by  the  dozen  down  here.  As  I 
said,  you  can  find  them  in  every  bread  line, 
in  every  Salvation  Army  barracks  or  the  As- 
sociated Charities  will  furnish  you  a  list  of 
as  many  as  you  want.  You'll  find  them  in 
the  suburbs  or  you'll  find  them  marching 
in  line  the  next  time  there  is  a  procession  of 
the  unemployed. 

But  give  me  true  pioneers  such  as  our  own 
forefathers  were,  such  as  the  young  men  out 
West  are  to-day,  such  as  every  steamer 
lands  here  by  the  hundreds  from  foreign 
countries  every  week  and  I  say  you  can't  down 
that  kind,  you  can't  kill  them,  I  don't  say 
that  it's  right  to  raise  the  price  of  necessities. 
I  don't  think  it  is,  though  I  don't  know  much 
about  it.     But  I  do  say  that  if  you  double 


222  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  cost  of  food  stuffs  and  then  double  it  again, 
though  you  may  cruelly  starve  out  the  weak- 
lings, you'll  find  the  pioneers  still  on  their  feet,, 
still  fighting. 

It  seems  strange  to  me  that  men  will  go 
to  Alaska  and  contentedly  freeze  and  dig  all 
day  in  a  mine — not  of  their  own,  but  for 
wages — and  not  feel  so  greatly  abused  or  un- 
happy; that  they  will  swing  an  axe  all  day  in 
a  forest  and  live  on  baked  beans  and  bread 
without  feeling  like  martyrs ;  that  they  will  go 
to  sea  and  grub  on  hard  tack  and  salt  pork 
and  fish  without  complaint  and  then  will 
turn  Anarchists  on  the  same  fare  in  the 
East.  It  seems  strange  too  that  these  men 
keep  strong  and  healthy,  and  that  our  an- 
cestors kept  strong  and  healthy  on  even  a 
still  simpler  diet.  Why,  my  father  fought 
battles — and  the  mental  strain  must  have  been 
terrific — and  did  more  actual  labor  every  day 
in  carrying  a  rifle  and  marching  than  I  do 
in  a  week,  and  slept  out  doors  under  a 
blanket — all  on  a  diet  that  the  average  tramp 
of  to-day  would  spurn.  He  did  this  for  four 
years  and  if  the  sanitary  conditions  had  been 
decent  would  have  returned  well  and  strong  as 
many  a  man  did  who  didn't  run  afoul  typhoid 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       223 

fever  and  malaria.  Men  who  do  such  things 
have  something  in  them  that  the  men  back 
East  have  lost.  I  call  it  the  romantic  spirit 
or  the  pioneer  spirit  and  I  say  that  a  man  who 
has  it  won't  care  whether  he's  living  in  Maine 
or  California  and  that  whatever  the  condi- 
tions are  he  will  overcome  them.  I  know  that 
we  three  would  have  lived  on  almost  rice  alone 
as  the  Japanese  do  before  we'd  have  cried  quit. 
That  was  because  we  were  tackling  this 
problem  not  as  Easterners  but  as  Westerners; 
not  as  poor  whites  but  as  emigrants.  Men 
on  a  ranch  stand  for  worse  things  than  we 
had  and  have  less  of  a  future  to  dream  about. 
So  I  repeat  that  to  my  mind  the  house  details 
don't  count  here  for  any  more  than  they  did 
in  the  lives  of  the  original  New  England  set- 
tlers, or  the  forty-niners,  or  those  on  home- 
steads or  in  Alaska  to-day.  However,  I'll 
put  them  in  and  I'll  take  the  month  of  May 
as  an  example — the  first  month  after  I  was 
made  foreman.  It's  fairer  to  give  the  items 
for  a  month.     They  are  as  follows: 

Oatmeal,  .17 

Corn  meal,  .10 

About  one  tenth  barrel  flour,  .65 


224  ONE  WAY  OUT. 

Potatoes,  .35 
Rice,  .08 
Sugar,  .40 
White  beans,  .16 
Pork,  .20 
Molasses,  .10 
Onions,  .23 
Lard,  .50 
Apples,  .36 
Soda,  etc.,  .14 
Soap,  .20 
Cornstarch,  .10 
Cocoa  shells,  .05 
Eggs,  .75 
Butter,  1. 12 
Milk,  4.48 
Meats,  1.60 
Fish,  .60 
Oil,  .20 

Yeast  cakes,  .06 
Macaroni,  .09 
Crackers,  .06 
Total  $12.75 

This  makes  an  average  of  three  dollars 
and  nineteen  cents  a  week.  With  a  fluctua- 
tion of  perhaps  twenty-five  cents  either  way 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       225 

Ruth  maintained  this  pretty  much  throughout 
the  year  now.  It  fell  off  a  little  in  the  sum- 
mer and  increased  a  little  in  the  winter.  It's 
impossible  to  give  any  closer  estimate  than 
this.  Even  this  month  many  things  were 
used  which  were  left  over  from  the  week  pre- 
ceding and,  on  the  other  hand,  some  things 
on  this  list  like  molasses  and  sugar  and  corn- 
starch went  towards  reducing  the  total  of  the 
month  following. 

This  left  say  a  dollar  and  seventy-five  cents 
a  week  for  such  small  incidentals  as  are  not 
accounted  for  here  but  chiefly  for  sewing 
material,  bargains  in  cloth  remnants  and  such 
things  as  were  needed  towards  the  repair  of 
our  clothes  as  well  as  for  such  new  clothes 
as  we  had  to  buy  from  time  to  time.  I  think 
we  spent  more  on  shoes  than  we  did  clothes 
but  Ruth  by  patronizing  the  sample  shoe  shops 
always  came  home  with  a  three  or  four  dollar 
pair  for  which  she  never  paid  over  two  dollars 
and  sometimes  as  low  as  a  dollar  and  a  half. 
The  boy  and  I  bought  our  shoes  at  the  same 
reduction  at  bankrupt  sales.  We  gave  our 
neighbors  this  tip  and  saw  them  save  a  good 
many  dollars  in  this  way. 

On  the  whole  these  people  were  not  good 


226  ONE  WAY,  OUT 

buyers;  they  never  looked  ahead  but  bought 
only  when  they  were  in  urgent  need  and  then 
bought  at  the  cheapest  price  regardless  of 
quality.  They  would  pay  two  and  two  and 
a  half  for  shoes  that  wouldn't  last  them  any 
time  at  all.  Whatever  Ruth  bought  she  con- 
sidered the  quality  first  and  the  price  after- 
wards. Then,  too,  she  often  ran  across  some- 
thing she  didn't  need  at  the  time  but  which 
was  a  good  bargain;  she  would  buy  this 
and  put  it  away.  She  was  able  to  buy 
many  things  which  were  out  of  season  for  half 
what  the  same  things  would  cost  six  months 
later.  It  was  very  difficult  to  make  our 
neighbors  see  the  advantage  of  this  practice 
and  their  blindness  cost  them  many  a  good 
dollar. 

We  also  had  the  advantage  of  our  neigh- 
bors in  knowing  how  to  take  good  care  of 
our  clothes.  The  average  man  was  careless 
and  slovenly.  In  a  week  a  new  suit  would  be 
spotted  with  grease,  wrinkled,  and  all  out  of 
shape.  He  never  thought  of  pressing  it, 
cleaning  it  or  of  putting  it  away  carefully 
when  through  wearing  it.  The  women  were 
no  better  about  their  own  clothes.  This  was 
also  true  of  their  shoes.     They  might  shine 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       227 

them  once  a  month  but  generally  they  let  them 
go  until  they  dried  up  and  cracked.  In  this 
way  their  new  clothes  soon  became  workday 
clothes,  their  new  shoes,  old  shoes,  and  as  such 
they  lasted  a  very  few  months. 

Dick  and  I  might  have  done  a  little  better 
than  our  neighbors  even  without  Ruth  to 
watch  us,  but  we  certainly  would  not  have  had 
the  training  we  did  have.  Shoes  had  to  be 
cleaned  and  either  oiled  or  shined  before  going 
to  bed.  If  it  rained  we  wore  our  old  pairs 
whether  it  was  Sunday  or  not  or  else  we 
Stayed  at  home.  Every  time  Dick  or  I  put  on 
our  good  clothes  we  were  as  carefully  inspected 
as  troops  on  parade.  If  a  grease  spot  was 
found,  it  was  removed  then  and  there.  If  a 
button  was  missing  or  a  bit  of  fringe  showed 
or  a  hole  the  size  of  a  pin  head  was  found  we 
had  to  wait  until  the  defect  was  remedied. 
Every  Sunday  morning  the  boy  pressed  both 
his  suit  and  mine  and  every  night  we  had  to 
hang  our  coats  over  a  chair  and  fold  our 
trousers.  If  we  were  careless  about  it,  the 
little  woman  without  a  word  simply  got  up 
and  did  them  over  again  herself. 

These  may  seem  like  small  matters  but  the 
result  was  that  we  all  of  us  kept  looking  ship- 


228  ONE  WAY  OUT 

shape  and  our  clothes  lasted.  When  we 
finally  did  finish  with  them  they  weren't 
good  for  anything  but  old  rags  and  even  then 
Ruth  used  them  about  her  housework.  I 
figured  roughly  that  Ruth  kept  us  well  dressed 
on  about  half  what  it  cost  most  of  our  neigh- 
bors and  yet  we  appeared  to  be  twice  as 
well  dressed  as  any  of  them.  Of  course  we 
had  a  good  many  things  to  start  with  when 
we  came  down  here  but  our  clothing  bill 
didn't  go  up  much  even  during  the  last  year 
when  our  original  stock  was  very  nearly  ex- 
hausted. She  accomplished  this  result  about 
one-half  by  long-headed  buying,  and  one-half 
by  her  carefulness  and  her  skill  with  the 
needle. 

To  go  back  to  the  matter  of  food,  I'll  copy 
off  a  week's  bill  of  fare  during  this  month. 
Ruth  has  written  it  out  for  me.  You'll  notice 
that  it  doesn't  vary  very  much  from  the 
earlier  ones. 

Sunday. 

Breakfast:  fried  hasty  pudding  with  mo- 
lasses; doughnuts,  cocoa  made  from  cocoa 
shells. 

Dinner:  lamb  stew  with  dumplings,  boiled 
potatoes,  boiled  onions,  corn  starch  pudding. 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       229 

Monday. 

Breakfast :  oatmeal,  baked  potatoes,  creamed 
codfish,  biscuits. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  brown  bread  sand- 
wiches, cold  beans,  doughnuts,  milk;  for  Dick 
and  me:  boiled  rice,  cold  biscuits,  baked  ap- 
ples, milk. 

Dinner:  warmed  over  lamb  stew,  baked  ap- 
ples, cocoa,  cold  biscuits. 

Tuesday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  milk  toast,  cocoa. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  biscuits,  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  doughnuts;  for  Dick  and  me: 
warmed  over  beans,  biscuits. 

Dinner:  hamburg  steak,  baked  potatoes, 
graham  muffins,  apple  sauce,  milk. 

Wednesday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  griddle-cakes  with  mo- 
lasses, cocoa  shells. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  sandwiches  made  of 
biscuits  and  left  over  steak,  doughnuts;  for 
Dick  and  me:  crackers  and  milk,  hot  ginger- 
bread. 

Dinner :  vegetable  hash,  hot  biscuits,  ginger- 
bread, apple  sauce,  milk. 


230  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Thursday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  fried  hasty  pudding, 
doughnuts,  cocoa  shells. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  hard-boiled  eggs,  cold 
biscuits,  gingerbread,  baked  apple;  for  Dick 
and  me:  baked  potatoes,  apple  sauce,  cold  bis- 
cuits, milk. 

Dinner:  lyonnaise  potatoes,  hot  corn  bread, 
Poor  man's  pudding,  milk. 

Friday. 

Breakfast:  smoked  herring,  baked  potatoes, 
oatmeal,  graham  muffins. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  herring,  cold  muffins, 
doughnuts;  for  Dick  and  me:  German  toast, 
apple  sauce. 

Dinner:  fish  hash,  biscuits,  Indian  pudding, 
milk, 

Saturday. 

Breakfast:  oatmeal,  German  toast,  cocoa 
shells. 

Luncheon:  for  Billy:  cold  biscuits,  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  bowl  of  rice;  for  Dick  and  me: 
rice  and  milk,  doughnuts,  apple  sauce. 

Dinner :  baked  beans,  new  raised  bread. 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK 


231 


To  a  man  accustomed  to  a  beafsteak  break- 
fast, fried  hasty  pudding  may  seem  a  poor 
substitute  and  griddle  cakes  may  seem  well 
enough  to  taper  off  with  but  scarcely  stuff  for 
a  full  meal.  All  I  say  is,  have  those  things 
well  made,  have  enough  of  them  and  then  try 
it.  If  a  man  has  a  sound  digestion  and  a 
good  body  I'll  guarantee  that  such  food  will 
not  only  satisfy  him  but  furnish  him  fuel  for 
the  hardest  kind  of  physical  exercise.  I  know 
because  I've  tried  it.  And  though  to  some 
my  lunches  may  sound  slight,  they  averaged 
more  in  substance  and  variety  than  the 
lunches  of  my  foreign  fellow-workmen.  A 
hunk  of  bread  and  a  bit  of  cheese  was  often 
all  they  brought  with  them. 

Dick  thrived  on  it  too.  The  elimination  of 
pastry  from  his  simple  luncheons  brought 
back  the  color  to  his  cheeks  and  left  him  hard 
as  nails. 

I've  read  since  then  many  articles  on  do- 
mestic economy  and  how  on  a  few  dollars  a 
week  a  man  can  make  many  fancy  dishes  which 
will  fool  him  into  the  belief  that  he  is  getting 
the  same  things  which  before  cost  him  a  great 
many  more  dollars.     Their  object  appears  to 


232  ONE  WAY  OUT 

be  to  give  such  a  variety  that  the  man  will  not 
notice  a  change.  Now  this  seems  to  me  all 
wrong.  What's  the  use  of  clinging  to  the 
notion  that  a  man  lives  to  eat?  Why  not  get 
down  to  bed  rock  at  once  and  face  the  fact  that 
a  man  doesn't  need  the  bill  of  fare  of  a  modern 
hotel  or  any  substitute  for  it?  A  few  simple 
foods  and  plenty  of  them  is  enough.  When 
a  man  begins  to  crave  a  variety  he  hasn't 
placed  his  emphasis  right.  He  hasn't  worked 
up  to  the  right  kind  of  hunger.  Com- 
pare the  old-time  country  grocery  store  with 
the  modern  provision  house  and  it  may  help 
you  to  understand  why  our  lean  sinewy  fore- 
fathers have  given  place  to  the  sallow,  fat 
parodies  of  to-day.  A  comparison  might  also 
help  to  explain  something  of  the  high  cost  of 
living.  My  grandfather  kept  such  a  store  and 
I've  seen  some  of  his  old  account  books. 
About  all  he  had  to  sell  in  the  way  of  food 
was  flour,  rice,  potatoes,  sugar  and  molasses, 
butter,  cheese  and  eggs.  These  articles 
weren't  put  up  in  packages  and  they  weren't 
advertised.  They  were  sold  in  bulk  and  all 
you  paid  for  was  the  raw  material.  The  cat- 
alogue of  a  modern  provision  house  makes  a 
book.    The  whole  object  of  the  change  it  seems 


FIFTEEN  DOLLARS  A  WEEK       233 

to  me  is  to  fill  the  demand  for  variety.  You 
have  to  pay  for  that.  But  when  you  trim 
your  ship  to  run  before  a  gale  you  must  throw 
overboard  just  such  freight.  Once  you  do, 
you'll  find  it  will  have  to  blow  harder  than  it 
does  even  to-day  to  sink  you.  I  am  constantly 
surprised  at  how  few  of  the  things  we  think 
we  need  we  actually  do  need. 

The  pioneer  of  to-day  doesn't  need  any 
more  than  the  pioneer  of  a  hundred  years  ago. 
To  me  this  talk  that  a  return  to  the  customs 
of  our  ancestors  involves  a  lowering  of  the 
standard  of  living  is  all  nonsense;  it  means 
nothing  but  a  simplifying  of  the  standard  of 
living.  If  that's  a  return  to  barbarism  then 
I'm  glad  to  be  a  barbarian  and  I'll  say  there 
never  were  three  happier  barbarians  than 
Ruth,  the  boy  and  myself. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  GANG 

If  I*d  been  making  five  dollars  a  <day  at 
this  time,  I  wouldn't  have  moved  from  the 
tenement.  In  the  first  place  as  far  as  phy- 
sical comfort  went  I  was  never  better  off. 
We  had  all  the  room  we  needed.  During  the 
winter  we  had  used  the  living  room  as  a 
kitchen  and  dining  room  just  as  our  fore- 
fathers did.  We  economized  fuel  in  this  way 
and  Ruth  kept  the  rooms  spotless.  We  had 
no  fires  in  our  bedrooms  and  did  not  want 
any.  We  all  of  us  slept  with  our  win- 
dows wide  open.  If  we  had  had  ten  more 
rooms  we  wouldn't  have  known  what  to  do 
with  them.  When  we  had  a  visitor  we  re- 
ceived him  in  the  kitchen.  Some  of  our 
neighbors  took  boarders  and  also  slept  in  the 
kitchen.  I  don't  know  as  I  should  want  to  do 
that  but  at  the  same  time  many  a  family  lives 
in  a  one  room  hut  in  the  forest  after  this 
fashion.     By   outsiders    it's   looked   upon   as 

234 


THE  GANG  235 

rather  romantic.     It  isn't  considered  a  great 
hardship  by  the  settlers  themselves. 

Then  we  had  the  advantage  of  our  roof  and 
with  summer  coming  on  we  looked  forward  to 
the  garden  and  the  joy  of  the  warm  starry 
nights.  We  had  some  wonderful  winter 
pictures,  too,  from  that  same  roof.  It  was 
worth  going  up  there  to  see  the  house  tops 
after  a  heavy  snow  storm. 

If  I  had  wanted  to  move  I  could  have  done 
only  one  of  two  things;  either  gone  back  into 
the  suburbs  or  taken  a  more  expensive  flat 
up  town.  I  certainly  had  had  enough  of  the 
former  and  as  for  the  latter  I  could  see  no 
comparison.  If  anything  this  flat  business 
was  worse  than  the  suburbs.  I  would  be 
surrounded  by  an  ordinary  group  of  people 
who  had  all  the  airs  of  the  latter  with  none 
of  their  good  points.  I'd  be  hedged  in  by 
conventions  with  which  I  was  now  even  in 
less  sympathy  than  before.  I  wouldn't  have 
exchanged  my  present  freedom  of  movement 
and  independence  of  action  for  even  the  best 
suite  in  the  most  expensive  apartment  house 
in  the  city.  Not  for  a  hundred  dollars  a  week. 
Advantages?  What  were  they?  Would  a 
higher  grade  of  wall  paper,  a  more  expen- 


236  ONE  WAY  OUT 

sive  set  of  furniture  and  steam  heat  compen- 
sate me  for  the  loss  of  the  soHd  comfort  I 
found  here  by  the  side  of  my  httle  iron  stove? 
Was  an  electric  elevator  a  fair  swap  for  my 
roof?  Were  the  gilt,  the  tinsel  and  the  soft 
carpets  w^orth  the  privilege  I  enjoyed  here  of 
dressing  as  I  pleased,  eating  what  I  pleased, 
doing  what  I  pleased?  Was  their  apartment- 
house  friendship,  however  polished,  worth  the 
simple  genuine  fellowship  I  enjoyed  among  my 
present  neighbors?  What  could  such  a  life 
offer  me  for  my  soul's  or  my  body's  good  that 
I  didn't  have  here?  I  couldn't  see  how  in  a 
single  respect  I  could  better  my  present  condi- 
tion except  with  the  complete  independence 
that  might  come  with  a  fortune  and  a  country 
estate.  Any  middle  ground,  assuming  that  I 
could  afford  it,  meant  nothing  but  the  under- 
taking again  of  all  the  old  burdens  I  had  just 
shaken  off. 

Ruth,  the  boy  and  myself  now  knew  genu- 
inely more  people  than  we  had  ever  before 
known  in  our  lives.  And  most  of  them  were 
worth  knowing  and  the  others  worth  some 
endeavor  to  make  worth  knowing.  We  were 
all  pulling  together  down  here — some  harder 
than  others,  to  be  sure,  but  all  with  a  distinct 


THE  GANG  237 

ambition  that  was  dependent  for  success  upon 
nothing  but  our  own  efforts. 

I  was  in  touch  with  more  opportunities  than 
I  had  ever  dreamed  existed.  All  three  of  us 
were  enjoying  more  advantages  than  we  had 
ever  dreamed  would  be  ours.  My  Italian  was 
improving  from  day  to  day.  I  could  handle 
mortar  easily  and  naturally  and  point  a 
joint  as  well  as  my  instructor.  I  could  build 
a  true  square  pier  of  any  size  from  one  brick 
to  twenty.  I  could  make  a  square  or  pigeon- 
hole corner  or  lay  out  a  brick  footing.  And 
I  was  proud  of  my  accomplishment. 

But  more  interesting  to  me  than  anything 
else  was  the  opportunity  I  now  had  as  a  fore- 
man to  test  the  value  of  the  knowledge  of  my 
former  fellow  workmen  which  I  had  been 
slowly  acquiring.  I  was  anxious  to  see  if  my 
ideas  were  pure  theory  or  whether  they  were 
practical.  They  had  proven  practical  at  any 
rate  in  securing  my  own  advance.  This  had 
come  about  through  no  such  pull  as  Raf- 
ferty's.  It  was  the  result  of  nothing  but  m}' 
intelligent  and  conscientious  work  in  the  ditch 
and  among  the  men.  And  this  in  turn  was 
made  possible  by  the  application  of  the 
knowledge  I  picked  up  and  used  as  I  had  the 


238  ONE  WAY  OUT 

chance.  It  was  only  because  I  had  shown  my 
employers  that  I  was  more  valuable  as  a  fore- 
man than  a  common  laborer  that  I  was  not 
still  digging.  I  had  been  able  to  do  this  be- 
cause having  learned  from  twenty  different 
men  how  to  handle  a  crowbar  for  instance^ 
I  had  from  time  to  time  been  able  to  direct 
the  men  with  whom  I  was  working  as  at 
the  start  I  myself  had  been  directed  by  Anton'. 
Anton'  was  still  digging  because  that  was 
all  he  knew.  I  had  learned  other  things.  I 
had  learned  how  to  handle  Anton'. 

I  had  no  idea  that  my  efforts  were  being 
watched.  I  don't  know  now  how  I  was 
picked  out.  Except  of  course  that  it  must 
have  been  because  of  the  work  I  did. 

At  any  rate  I  found  myself  at  the  head  of 
twenty  men — all  Italians,  all  strangers  and 
among  them  three  or  four  just  off  the  steamer. 
My  first  job  was  on  a  foundation  for  an 
apartment  house.  Of  course  my  part  in  it 
was  the  very  humble  one  of  seeing  that  the 
men  kept  at  work  digging.  The  work 
had  all  been  staked  out  and  the  architect's 
agent  was  there  to  give  all  incidental  instruc- 
tions. He  was  a  young  graduate  of  a  techni- 
cal school  and  I  took  the  opportunity  this  of- 


THE  GANG  239 

fered — for  he  was  a  good-natured  boy — to  use 
what  Httle  I  had  learned  in  my  night  school 
and  study  his  blue  prints.  At  odd  times  he 
explained  them  to  me  and  aside  from  what  I 
learned  myself  from  them  it  helped  me  to  di- 
rect the  men  more  intelligently. 

But  it  was  on  the  men  themselves  that  I 
centred  my  efforts.  As  soon  as  possible  I 
learned  them  by  name.  At  the  noon  hour  I 
took  my  lunch  with  them  and  talked  with 
them  in  their  own  language.  I  made  a  note 
of  where  they  lived  and  found  as  I  expected 
that  many  were  from  my  ward.  Incidentally 
I  dropped  a  word  here  and  there  about  the 
**Young  American  Political  Club,"  and  asked 
them  to  come  around  to  some  of  the  meetings. 
I  found  out  where  they  came  from  and 
wherever  I  could,  I  associated  them  with  some 
of  their  fellows  with  whom  I  had  worked.  I 
found  out  about  their  families.  In  brief  I 
made  myself  know  every  man  of  them  as  inti- 
mately as  was  possible. 

I  don't  suppose  for  a  minute  that  I  could 
have  done  this  successfully  if  I  hadn't  really 
been  genuinely  interested  in  them.  If  I  had 
gone  at  it  like  a  professional  hand  shaker  they 
would  have  detected  the  hypocrisy  in  no  time. 


240  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Neither  did  I  attempt  a  chummy  attitude  nor 
a  fatherly  attitude.  I  made  it  clearly  under- 
stood that  I  was  an  American  first  of  all  and 
that  I  was  their  boss.  It  was  perfectly  easy 
to  do  this  and  at  the  same  time  treat  them  like 
men  and  like  units.  I  tried  to  make  them  feel 
that  instead  of  being  merely  a  bunch  of 
Dagoes  they  were  Italian  workingmen. 
lYour  foreign  laborer  is  quick  to  appreciate 
such  a  distinction  and  quick  to  respond  to  it. 
With  the  American-born  you  have  to  draw  a 
sharper  line  and  hold  a  steadier  rein.  I  fig- 
ured out  that  when  you  find  a  member  of  the 
second  or  third  generation  still  digging,  you've 
found  a  man  with  something  wrong  about 
him. 

The  next  thing  I  did  was  to  learn  what 
each  man  could  do  best.  Of  course  I  could 
make  only  broad  classifications.  Still  there 
were  men  better  at  lifting  than  others;  men 
better  with  the  crowbar;  men  better  at  shovel- 
ing; men  naturally  industrious  who  would 
leaven  a  group  of  three  or  four  lazy  ones. 
As  well  as  I  could  I  sorted  them  out  in  this 
way. 

In  addition  to  taking  this  personal  interest 
in   them   individually,    I   based   my   relations 


THE  GANG  241 

with  them  collectively  on  a  principle  of  strict, 
homely  justice.  I  found  there  was  no  quality 
of  such  universal  appeal  as  this  one  of  justice. 
Whether  deahng  with  Italians,  Russians, 
Portuguese,  Poles,  Irish  or  Irish-Americans 
you  could  always  get  below  their  national 
peculiarities  if  you  reached  this  common  de- 
nominator. However  browbeaten,  however 
slavish,  they  had  been  in  their  former  lives 
this  spark  seemed  always  alive.  However 
cocky  or  anarchistic  they  might  feel  in  their 
new  freedom  you  could  pull  them  up  with  a 
sharp  turn  by  an  appeal  to  their  sense  of  jus- 
tice. And  by  justice  I  mean  nothing  but 
what  ex-president  Roosevelt  has  now  made 
familiar  by  the  phrase  "a  square  deal." 
Justice  in  the  abstract  might  not  appeal  to 
them  but  they  knew  when  they  were  being 
treated  fairly  and  when  they  were  not.  Also 
they  knew  when  they  were  treating  you  fairly 
and  when  they  were  not.  I  never  allowed  a 
man  to  feel  bullied  or  abused;  I  never  gave  a 
sharp  order  without  an  explanation.  I  never 
discharged  a  man  without  making  him  feel 
guilty  in  his  heart  no  matter  how  much  he 
protested  with  his  lips.  And  I  never  dis- 
charged him  without  making  the  other  men 


242  ONE  WAY  OUT 

clearly  see  his  guilt.  When  a  man  went,  he 
left  no  sympathizers  behind  him. 

On  the  other  hand  I  made  them  act  justly 
towards  their  employer  and  towards  me.  I 
taught  them  that  justice  must  be  on  both  sides. 
I  tried  to  make  them  understand  that  their  part 
was  not  to  see  how  little  work  they  could  do 
for  their  money  and  that  mine  was  not  to  see 
how  much  they  could  do,  but  that  it  was  up  to 
both  of  us  to  turn  out  a  full  fair  day's  work. 
They  were  not  a  chain  gang  but  workmen  sell- 
ing their  labor.  Just  as  they  expected  the 
store-keepers  to  sell  them  fair  measure  and 
full  weight,  so  I  expected  them  to  sell  a  full 
day  and  honest  effort. 

It  wasn't  always  possible  to  secure  a  result 
but  when  it  wasn't  I  got  rid  of  that  man  on  the 
first  occasion.  It  was  very  much  easier  to 
handle  in  this  way  the  freedom-loving  foreign- 
ers than  I  looked  for;  with  the  American-born 
it  was  harder  than  I  expected. 

On  the  whole  however  I  was  mighty  well 
pleased.  I  certainly  got  a  lot  of  work  out  of 
them  without  in  any  way  pushing  them.  They 
didn't  sweat  for  me  and  I  didn't  want  them  to 
— but  they  kept  steadily  at  their  work  from 
morning  until  night.     Then  too,  I  didn't  hes- 


THE  GANG  243 

itate  to  do  a  little  work  myself  now  and  then. 
If  at  any  point  another  man  seemed  to  be 
needed  to  help  over  a  difficulty  I  jumped  in. 
I  not  only  often  saved  the  useless  efforts  of 
three  or  four  men  in  this  way  but  I  convinced 
them  that  I  too  had  my  employers'  interests 
at  heart.  My  object  wasn't  simply  to  earn 
my  day's  pay,  it  was  to  finish  the  job  we  were 
on  in  the  shortest  possible  time.  It  makes  a 
big  difference  whether  a  man  feels  he  is  work- 
ing by  the  day  or  by  the  job.  I  tried  to  make 
them  feel  that  we  were  all  working  by  the  job. 

Without  boasting  I  think  I  can  say  that  we 
cut  down  the  contractor's  estimate  by  at  least 
a  full  day.  I  know  they  had  to  do  some  hus- 
tling to  get  the  pile-drivers  to  the  spot  on  time. 

On  the  next  job  I  had  to  begin  all  over  again 
with  a  new  gang.  It  seemed  a  pity  that  all 
my  work  on  the  other  should  be  wasted  but  I 
didn't  say  anything.  For  two  months  I  took 
each  time  the  men  I  had  and  did  my  best  with 
them.  I  had  my  reward  in  finding  myself 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  constantly  increasing 
force.  I  also  found  that  I  was  being  sent  on 
all  the  hurry-up  work.  I  learned  something 
every  day.  Finally  when  the  time  seemed  ripe 
I   went   to   the   contractor's   agent   with   the 


244  ^NE  WAY  OUT 

proposition  towards  which  I  had  all  along  been 
working.  This  was  that  I  should  be  allowed 
to  hire  my  own  men. 

The  agent  was  skeptical  at  first  about  the 
wisdom  of  entrusting  such  power  as  this  to  a 
subordinate  but  I  put  my  case  to  him  squarely. 
I  said  in  brief  that  I  was  sure  I  could  pick 
a  gang  of  fifty  men  who  would  do  the  work 
of  seventy-five.  I  told  him  that  for  a  year 
now  I  had  been  making  notes  on  the  best 
workers  and  I  thought  I  could  secure  them. 
But  I  would  have  to  do  it  myself.  It  would 
be  only  through  my  personal  influence  with 
them  that  they  could  be  got.  He  raised  sev- 
eral objections  but  I  finally  said: 

"Let  me  try  it  anyhow.  The  men  won't 
cost  you  any  more  than  the  others  and  if  I 
don't  make  good  it's  easy  enough  to  go  back 
to  the  old  way." 

It's  queer  how  stubbornly  business  men 
cling  to  routine.  They  get  stuck  in  a  system 
and  hate  to  change.  He  finally  gave  me  per- 
mission to  see  the  men.  I  was  then  to  turn 
them  over  to  the  regular  paymaster  who  would 
engage  them.  This  was  all  I  wanted  and  with 
my  note  book  I  started  out. 


THE  GANG  245 

It  was  no  easy  job  for  me  and  for  a  week 
I  had  to  cut  out  my  night  school  and  give  all 
my  time  to  it.  Many  of  the  men  had  moved 
and  others  had  gone  into  other  work  but  I 
kept  at  it  night  after  night  trotting  from  one 
end  of  the  city  to  the  other  until  I  rounded 
up  about  thirty  of  them.  This  seemed  to  me 
enough  to  form  a  core.  I  could  pick  up  others 
from  time  to  time  as  I  found  them.  The 
men  remembered  me  and  when  I  told  them 
something  of  my  plan  they  all  agreed  with  a 
grin  to  report  for  work  as  soon  as  they  were 
free.  And  this  was  how  Carleton's  gang 
happened  to  be  formed. 

It  took  me  about  three  months  to  put  all 
my  fifty  men  into  good  working  order  and  it 
wasn't  for  a  year  that  I  had  my  machine 
where  I  wanted  it.  But  it  was  a  success  from 
the  start.  At  the  end  of  a  year  I  learned  that 
even  the  contractor  himself  began  to  speak  with 
some  pride  of  Carleton's  gang.  And  he  used  it. 
He  used  it  hard.  In  fact  he  made  something 
of  a  special  feature  of  it.  It  began  to  bring 
him  emergency  business.  Wherever  speed 
was  a  big  essential,  he  secured  the  contract 
through  my  gang.     He  used  us  altogether  for 


246  ONE  WAY  OUT 

foundation  work  and  his  business  increased  so 
rapidly  that  we  were  never  idle.  I  became 
proud  of  my  men  and  my  reputation. 

But  of  course  this  success — this  proof  that 
my  idea  was  a  good  one — only  whetted  my 
appetite  for  the  big  goal  still  ahead  of  me. 
I  was  eager  for  the  day  when  this  group  of 
men  should  really  be  Carleton's  gang.  It 
was  hard  in  a  way  to  see  the  result  of  my 
own  thought  and  work  turning  out  big  profits 
for  another  when  all  I  needed  was  a  little  cap- 
ital to  make  it  my  own.  Still  I  knew  I  must  be 
patient.  There  were  many  things  yet  that  I 
must  learn  before  I  should  be  competent  to  un- 
dertake contracts  for  myself.  In  the  mean- 
while I  could  satisfy  my  ambition  by  constantly 
strengthening  and  perfecting  the  machine. 

Then,  too,  I  found  that  the  gang  was  bring- 
ing me  into  closer  touch  with  my  superiors. 
One  day  I  was  called  to  the  office  of  the  firm 
and  there  I  met  the  two  men  who  until  now  had 
been  nothing  to  me  but  two  names.  For  a 
year  I  had  stared  at  these  names  painted  in 
black  on  white  boards  and  posted  about  the 
grounds  of  every  job  upon  which  I  had  worked. 
I  had  never  thought  of  them  as  human  beings 
so  much  as  some  hidden  force — like  the  unseen 


THE  GANG  247 

dynamo  of  a  power  plant.  They  were  both 
Irish- Americans — strong,  prosperous-looking 
men.  Somehow  they  made  me  distinctly  con- 
scious of  my  own  ancestry.  I  don't  mean  that 
I  was  over-proud — in  a  way  I  don't  suppose 
there  was  anything  to  boast  of  in  the  Carletons 
— but  as  I  stood  before  these  men  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  minor  employee  I  suppose  that  un- 
consciously I  looked  for  something  in  my  past 
to  offset  my  present  humiliating  situation. 
'And  from  a  business  point  of  view,  it  was 
humiliating.  The  Carletons  had  been  in  this 
country  two  hundred  years  and  these  men 
but  twenty-five  or  thirty  and  yet  I  was  the  man 
who  stood  while  they  faced  me  in  their  easy 
chairs  before  their  roll-top  desks.  It  was  then 
that  I  was  glad  to  remember  there  hadn't 
been  a  war  in  this  country  in  which  a  Carleton 
had  not  played  his  part.  I  held  myself  a  little 
better  for  the  thought. 

They  were  unaffected  and  business-like  but 
when  they  spoke  it  was  plain  "Carleton"  and 
when  I  spoke  it  was  "Mr.  Corkery,"  or  "Mr. 
Galvin."     That  was  right  and  proper  enough. 

They  had  called  me  in  to  consult  with  me  on 
a  big  job  which  they  were  trying  to  figure  down 
to  the  very  lowest  point.     They  were  willing  to 


248  ONE  WAY  OUT 

get  out  of  it  with  the  smallest  possible  margin 
of  profit  for  the  advertisement  it  would  give 
them  and  in  view  of  future  contracts  with  the 
same  firm  which  it  might  bring.  The  largest 
item  in  it  was  the  handling  of  the  dirt.  They 
showed  me  their  blue  prints  and  their  rough 
estimate  and  then  Mr.  Corkery  said: 

''How  much  can  you  take  off  that,  Carle- 
ton?" 

I  told  him  I  would  need  two  or  three  hours 
to  figure  it  out.     He  called  a  clerk. 

"Give  Carleton  a  desk,"  he  said. 

Then  he  turned  to  me : 

"Stay  here  until  you've  done  it,"  he  said. 

It  took  me  all  the  forenoon.  I  worked  care- 
fully because  it  seemed  to  me  that  here  was  a 
big  chance  to  prove  myself.  I  worked  at  those 
figures  as  though  I  had  every  dollar  I  ever 
hoped  to  have  at  stake.  I  didn't  trim  it  as 
close  as  I  would  have  done  for  myself  but  as  it 
was  I  took  ofif  a  fifth — the  matter  of  five  thou- 
sand dollars.  When  I  came  back,  Mr.  Cork- 
ery looked  over  my  figures. 

"Sure  you  can  do  that  ?"  he  asked. 

I  could  see  he  was  surprised. 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  said. 

"I'd  hate  like  hell  to  get  stuck,"  he  said. 


THE  GANG  249 

"You  won't  get  stuck,"  I  answered. 

"It  isn't  the  loss  I  mind,"  he  said,  "but — 
well  there  is  a  firm  or  two  that  is  waiting  to 
give  me  the  laugh." 

"They  won't  laugh,"  I  said. 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment  and  then  called 
in  a  clerk. 

"Have  those  figures  put  in  shape,"  he  said, 
"and  send  in  this  bid." 

Corkery  secured  the  contract.  I  picked  one 
hundred  men.  The  morning  we  began  I  held 
a  sort  of  convention. 

"Men,"  I  said,  "I've  promised  to  do  this  in 
so  many  days.  They  say  we  can't  do  it.  If 
we  don't,  here's  where  they  laugh  at  the  gang." 

We  did  it.  I  never  heard  from  Corkery 
about  it  but  when  we  were  through  I  thanked 
the  gang  and  I  found  them  more  truly  mine 
than  they  had  ever  been  before. 

Every  Saturday  night  I  brought  home  my 
fifteen  dollars,  and  Ruth  took  out  three  for  the 
rent,  five  for  household  expenses,  and  put 
seven  in  the  ginger  jar.  We  had  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  dollars  in  the  bank  before  the 
raise  came,  and  after  this  it  increased  rapidly. 
There  wasn't  a  week  we  didn't  put  aside  seven 
dollars,  and  sometimes  eight.     The  end  of  my 


250  ONE  WAY  OUT 

first  year  as  an  emigrant  found  me  with  the 
following  items  to  my  credit:  Ruth,  the  boy 
and  myself  in  better  health  than  we  had  ever 
been;  Ruth's  big  mother-love  finding  outlet  in 
the  neighborhood ;  the  boy  alert  and  ambitious ; 
myself  with  the  beginning  of  a  good  technical 
education,  to  say  nothing  of  the  rudiments  of 
a  new  language,  with  a  loyal  gang  of  one  hun- 
dred men  and  two  hundred  dollars  in  cash. 

This  inventory  does  not  take  into  account  my 
new  friends,  my  new  mental  and  spiritual  out- 
look upon  life,  or  my  enhanced  self-respect. 
Such  things  cannot  be  calculated. 

That  first  year  was,  of  course,  the  important 
year — the  big  year.  It  proved  what  could  be 
done,  and  nothing  remained  now  but  time 
in  which  to  do  it.  It  established  the  evident 
fact  that  if  a  raw,  uneducated  foreigner  can 
come  to  this  country  and  succeed,  a  native- 
born  with  experience  plus  intelligence  ought  to 
do  the  same  thing  more  rapidly.  But  it  had 
taught  me  that  what  the  native-born  must 
do  is  to  simplify  his  standard  of  living,  take 
advantage  of  the  same  opportunities,  toil 
with  the  same  spirit,  and  free  himself  from 
the  burdensome  bonds  of  caste.  The  ad- 
vantage is  all  with  the  pioneer,  the  adven- 


THE  GANG  251 

turer,  the  emigrant.  These  are  the  real  chil- 
dren of  the  republic — here  in  the  East,  at  any 
rate.  Every  landing  dock  is  Plymouth  Rock 
to  them.  They  are  the  real  forefathers  of  the 
coming  century,  because  they  possess  all  the 
rugged  strength  of  settlers.  They  are  making 
their  own  colonial  history. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO 

When  school  closed  in  June,  Dick  came  to  me 
and  said: 

"Dad,  I  don't  want  to  loaf  all  summer." 

"No  need  of  it,"  I  said.  "Take  another 
course  in  the  summer  school." 

"I  want  to  earn  some  money,"  he  said,  "I 
want  to  go  to  work." 

If  the  boy  had  come  to  me  a  year  ago  with 
that  suggestion  I  should  have  felt  hurt.  I 
would  have  thought  it  a  reflection  upon  my 
ability  to  support  my  family.  We  salaried 
men  used  to  expect  our  children  to  be  depend- 
dent  on  us  until  they  completed  their  educa- 
tions. For  a  boy  to  work  during  his  summer 
vacation  was  almost  as  bad  form  as  for  the 
wife  to  work  for  money  at  any  time.  It  had 
to  be  explained  that  the  boy  was  a  prodigy 
with  unusual  business  ability  or  that  he  was 
merely  seeking  experience.  But  Dick  did  not 
fall  into  any  of  these  classes.     This  was  what 

252 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     253 

made  his  proposal  the  more  remarkable  to  me. 
It  meant  that  he  was  willing  to  take  just  a  plain 
every-day  plugging  job. 

And  underlying  this  willingness  was  the 
spirit  that  was  resurrecting  us  all.  Instead  of 
acting  on  the  defensive,  Dick  was  now  eager 
to  play  the  aggressive  game.  I  hadn't  looked 
for  this  spirit  to  show  in  him  so  soon,  in  his 
life  outside  of  school.  I  was  mighty  well 
pleased. 

''All  right,"  I  said,  "what  do  you  think  you 
can  do?" 

"I've  talked  with  some  of  the  fellows,"  he 
said,  "and  the  surest  thing  seems  to  be  selling 
papers." 

I  gave  a  gasp  at  that.  I  hadn't  yet  lost  the 
feeling  that  a  newsboy  was  a  sort  of  cross  be- 
tween an  orphan  and  a  beggar.  He  was 
to  me  purely  an  object  of  pity.  Of  course  I'd 
formed  this  notion  like  a  good  many  others 
from  the  story  books  and  the  daily  paper.  I 
connected  a  newsboy  with  blind  fathers  and 
sick  mothers  if  he  had  any  parents  at  all. 

"I  guess  you  can  get  something  better  than 
that  to  do,"  I  said. 

"What's  the  matter  with  selling  papers?" 
he  asked. 


254  ONE  WAY  OUT 

When  I  stopped  to  think  of  the  work  in  that 
way — as  just  the  buying  and  selhng  of  papers 
— I  couldn't  see  anything  the  matter  with  it. 
Why  wasn't  it  hke  buying  and  selhng  any- 
thing? You  were  selhng  a  product  in  which 
millions  of  money  was  invested,  a  product 
which  everyone  wanted,  a  product  where  you 
gave  your  customers  their  money's  worth. 
The  only  objection  I  could  think  of  at  the  mo- 
ment was  that  there  was  so  little  in  it. 

**It  will  keep  you  on  the  streets  five  or  six 
hours  a  day,"  I  said,  "and  I  don't  suppose  you 
can  make  more  than  a  dollar  a  week." 

"A  dollar  a  week !"  he  said.  **Do  you  know 
what  one  fellow  in  our  class  makes  right 
through  the  year  ?" 

"How  much?"  I  asked. 

"He  makes  between  six  and  eight  dollars  a 
week,"  said  Dick. 

"That  doesn't  sound  possible,"  I  said. 

"He  told  me  he  made  that.  And  another 
fellow  he  knows  about  did  as  well  as  this  even 
while  he  was  in  college.  He  pretty  nearly 
paid  his  own  way." 

"What  do  you  make  on  a  paper  ?"  I  asked. 

"About  half  a  cent  on  the  one  cent  papers,, 
and  a  cent  on  the  two  cent  papers." 


DICK  FINDS  A  .WAY  OUT,  TOO    255 

"Then  these  boys  have  to  sell  over  two  hun- 
dred papers  a  day." 

'They  have  about  a  hundred  regular  cus- 
tomers/' said  Dick,  *'and  they  sell  another 
hundred  papers  besides." 

It  seemed  to  me  the  boys  must  have  exag- 
gerated because  eight  dollars  a  week  was  pretty 
nearly  the  pay  of  an  able-bodied  man.  It 
didn't  seem  possible  that  these  youngsters 
whom  I'd  pitied  all  my  life  could  earn  such  an 
income.  However  if  they  didn't  earn  half  as 
much,  it  wasn't  a  bad  proposition  for  a  lad. 

I  talked  the  matter  over  with  Ruth  and  I 
found  she  had  the  same  prejudices  I  had  had. 
She,  too,  thought  selling  papers  was  a  branch 
of  begging.  I  repeated  what  Dick  told  me 
and  she  shook  her  head  doubtfully. 

"It  doesn't  seem  as  though  I  could  let  the 
boy  do  that,"  she  said. 

If  there  was  one  thing  down  here  the  little 
woman  always  worried  about  deep  in  her 
heart,  it  was  lest  the  boy  and  myself  might 
get  coarsened.  She  thought,  I  think,  with- 
out ever  exactly  saying  so  to  herself  that  in 
our  ambition  to  forge  ahead  we  might 
lose  some  of  the  finer  standards  of  life.  She 
was   bucking  against  that  tendency  all   the 


256  ONE  WAY  OUT. 

time.  That's  why  she  made  me  shave  every 
morning,  that's  why  she  made  me  keep  my 
shoes  blacked,  that's  why  she  made  us  both 
dress  up  on  Sunday  w'hether  we  went  to  church 
or  not.  She  for  her  part  kept  herself  looking 
even  more  trig  than  when  she  had  the  fear 
that  Mrs.  Grover  might  drop  in  at  any  time. 
And  every  night  at  dinner  she  presided  with 
as  much  form  as  though  she  were  entertain- 
ing a  dinner  party.  I  guess  she  thought  we 
might  learn  to  eat  with  our  knives  if  she 
didn't. 

"Well,''  I  said,  "your  word  is  final.  But 
let's  look  at  this  first  as  a  straight  business 
proposition." 

So  I  went  over  the  scheme  just  as  I  had  to 
myself. 

"These  boys  aren't  beggars,"  I  said.  "They 
are  little  business  men.  And  as  a  matter  of 
fact  most  of  them  are  earning  as  much  as  their 
fathers.  The  trouble  is  that  they've  been 
given  a  black  eye  by  well-meaning  sympathiz- 
ers who  haven't  taken  the  trouble  to  find  out 
just  what  the  actual  facts  are.  A  group  of 
big-hearted  women  who  see  their  own  chickens 
safely  rounded  up  at  six  every  night,  find  the 
newsboys  on  the  street  as  they  themselves  are 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     257 

on  their  way  to  the  opera  and  conclude  it's  a 
great  hardship  and  that  the  lads  must  be  home- 
less and  suffering.  Maybe  they  even  find  a  case 
or  two  which  justifies  this  theory.  But  on  the 
whole  they  are  simply  comparing  the  outside 
of  these  boys'  lives  with  the  lives  of  their  own 
sheltered  boys.  They  don't  stop  to  consider 
that  these  lads  are  toughened  and  that  they'd 
probably  be  on  the  street  anyway.  And  they 
don't  figure  out  how  much  they  earn  or  what 
that  amount  stands  for  down  here." 

Ruth  listened  and  then  she  said: 

"But  isn't  it  a  pity  that  the  boys  are  tough- 
ened, Billy?" 

"No,"  I  said,  "it  would  be  a  pity  if  they 
weren't.  They  wouldn't  last  a  year.  We 
have  to  have  some  seasoned  fighters  in  the 
world." 

"But  Dick—" 

"Dick  has  found  his  feet  now.  The  sug- 
gestion was  his  own.  Personally  I  believe  in 
letting  him  try  it." 

"All  right,  Billy,"  she  said. 

But  she  said  it  in  such  a  sad  sort  of  way 
that  I  said: 

"If  you're  going  to  worry  about  him,  this 
ends  it.     But  I'd  like  to  see  the  boy  so  well 


258  ONE  WAY  OUT 

seasoned  that  you  won't  have  to  worry  about 
him  no  matter  where  he  is,  no  matter  what  he's 
doing." 

^'You're  right,"  she  said,  "I  want  to  see  him 
like  you.     I  never  worry  about  you,  Billy." 

It  pleased  me  to  have  her  say  that.  I  know 
a  lot  of  men  who  wouldn't  believe  their  wives 
loved  them  unless  they  fretted  about  them 
all  the  time.  I  think  a  good  many  fellows 
even  make  up  things  just  to  see  the 
women  worry.  I  remember  that  Stevens  al- 
ways used  to  come  home  either  with  a  sick 
headache  or  a  tale  of  how  he  thought  he  might 
lose  his  job  or  something  of  the  sort  and  poor 
Dolly  Stevens  would  stay  awake  half  the  night 
comforting  him.  She'd  tell  Ruth  about  it  the 
next  day.  I  may  have  had  a  touch  of  that  dis- 
ease myself  before  I  came  down  here  but  I 
know  that  ever  since  then  I've  tried  to  lift  the 
worrying  load  off  the  wife's  shoulders.  I've 
done  my  best  to  make  Ruth  feel  I'm  strong 
enough  to  take  care  of  myself.  I've  wanted 
her  to  trust  me  so  that  she'd  know  I  act  always 
just  as  though  she  was  by  my  side.  Of 
course  I've  never  been  able  to  do  away  alto- 
gether with  her  fear  of  sickness  and  sudden 
death,  but  so  far  as  my  own  conduct  is  con- 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     259 

cerned  I've  tried  to  make  her  feel  secure  in 
me. 

When  I  stop  to  think  about  it,  Ruth  has 
really  lived  three  lives.  She  has  lived  her  own 
and  she  has  lived  it  hard.  She  not  only  has 
done  her  daily  tasks  as  well  as  she  knew  how 
but  she  has  tried  to  make  herself  a  little  better 
every  day.  That  has  been  a  waste  of  time  be- 
cause she  was  just  naturally  as  good  as  they 
make  them  but  you  couldn't  ever  make  her  see 
that.  I  don't  suppose  there's  been  a  day  when 
at  night  she  hasn't  thought  she  might  have 
done  something  a  little  better  and  lain  awake 
to  tell  me  so. 

Then  Ruth  has  lived  my  life  and  done  over 
again  every  single  thing  I've  done  except  the 
actual  physical  labor.  Why  every  evening 
when  I  came  back  from  work  she  wanted  me  to 
begin  with  seven-thirty  a.  m.  and  tell  her 
everything  that  happened  after  that.  And 
when  I  came  back  from  school  at  night,  she'd 
wake  up  out  of  a  sound  sleep  if  she  had 
gone  to  bed  and  ask  me  to  tell  her  just  what 
I'd  learned.  Though  she  never  held  a  trowel 
in  her  hand  I'll  bet  she  could  go  out  to-day  and 
build  a  true  brick  wall.  And  though  she  has 
never  seen  half  the  men  I've  met,  she  knows 


26o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

them  as  well  as  I  do  myself.  Some  of  them 
she  knows  better  and  has  proved  to  me  time 
and  again  that  she  does.  I've  often  told  her 
about  some  man  I'd  just  met  and  about  whom 
I  was  enthusiastic  for  the  moment  and  she'd 
say: 

"Tell  me  what  he  looks  like,  Billy." 

I'd  tell  her  and  then  she'd  ask  about  his  eyes 
and  about  his  mouth  and  what  kind  of  a  voice 
he  had  and  whether  he  smiled  when  he  said  so 
and  so  and  whether  he  looked  me  in  the  eyes 
at  that  point  and  so  on.     Then  she'd  say: 

^'Better  be  a  little  careful  about  him";  or  "I 
guess  you  can  trust  him,  Billy." 

Sometimes  she  made  mistakes  but  that  was 
because  I  hadn't  reported  things  to  her  just 
right.  Generally  I'd  trust  her  judgment  in  the 
face  of  my  own. 

Then  Ruth  led  the  boy's  life.  Every  am- 
bition he  had  was  her  ambition.  Besides  that 
she  had  a  dozen  ambitions  for  him  that  he 
didn't  know  anything  about.  And  she  thought 
and  worked  and  schemed  to  make  every  single 
one  of  them  come  true.  Every  trouble  he  had 
was  her  trouble  too.  If  he  worried  a  half 
hour  over  something,  she  worried  an  hour. 
Then  again  there  were  a  whole  lot  of  other 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     261 

troubles  in  connection  with  him  which  both- 
ered her  and  which  he  didn't  know  about. 

Besides  all  these  things  she  was  busy  about 
dressing  us  and  feeding  us  and  making  us 
comfortable.  She  was  always  cleaning  our 
rooms  and  washing  our  clothes  and  mending 
our  socks.  Then,  too,  she  looked  after  the 
finances  and  this  in  itself  was  enough  for  one 
woman  to  do.  Then  as  though  this  wasn't 
plenty  she  kept  light-hearted  for  our  sakes. 
You'd  find  her  singing  about  her  work  when- 
ever you  came  in  and  always  ready  with  a 
smile  and  a  joke.  And  if  she  herself  had  a 
headache  you  had  to  be  a  doctor  and  a  lawyer 
rolled  in  one  to  find  it  out. 

So  I  say  the  least  I  could  do  was  to  make  her 
trust  me  so  thoroughly  that  she'd  have  one  less 
burden.  And  I  wanted  to  bring  up  Dick  in 
the  same  way.  Dick  was  a  good  boy  and  I'll 
say  that  he  did  his  best. 

Ruth  says  that  if  I  don't  tear  up  these  last 
few  pages,  people  will  think  I'm  silly.  I'm 
willing  so  long  as  they  believe  me  honest.  Of 
course,  in  a  way,  such  details  are  no  one's  busi- 
ness but  if  I  couldn't  give  Ruth  the  credit  which 
is  her  due  in  this  imdertaking,  I  wouldn't  take 
the  trouble  to  write  it  all  out. 


262  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Dick  told  his  school  friend  what  he  wanted 
to  do  and  asked  his  advice  on  the  best  way  to 
go  at  it.  The  latter  went  with  him  and  helped 
him  get  his  license,  took  him  down  to  the  news- 
paper offices  and  showed  him  where  to  buy  his 
papers,  and  introduced  him  to  the  other  boys. 
The  newsboys  hadn't  at  that  time  formed  a  union 
but  there  was  an  agreement  among  them  about 
the  territory  each  should  cover.  Some  of  the 
boys  had  worked  up  a  regular  trade  in  certain 
places  and  of  course  it  wasn't  right  for  a  new- 
comer to  infringe  upon  this.  There  was  con- 
siderable talking  and  some  bargaining  and 
finally  Dick  was  given  a  stand  in  the  banking 
district.  This  was  due  to  Dick's  classmate 
also.  The  latter  realized  that  a  boy  of  Dick's 
appearance  would  do  better  there  than  any- 
where. 

So  one  morning  Dick  rose  early  and  I 
staked  him  to  a  dollar  and  he  started  off  in 
high  spirits.  He  didn't  have  any  of  the  false 
pride  about  the  work  that  at  first  I  myself  had 
felt.  He  was  on  my  mind  pretty  much  all 
that  day  and  I  came  home  curious  and  a  little 
bit  anxious  to  learn  the  result.  He  had  been 
back  after  the  morning  editions.  Ruth  re- 
ported   he    had    sold    fifty    papers    and    had 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     263 

returned  more  eager  than  ever.  She  said  he 
wouldn't  probably  be  home  until  after  seven. 
He  wanted  to  catch  the  crowds  on  their  way  to 
the  station. 

I  suggested  to  Ruth  that  we  wait  dinner  for 
him  and  go  on  up  town  and  watch  him.  She 
hesitated  at  this,  fearing  the  boy  wouldn't  like 
it  and  perhaps  not  over  anxious  herself  to  see 
him  on  such  a  job.  But  as  I  said,  if  the  boy 
wasn't  ashamed  I  didn't  think  we  ought  to  be. 
So  she  put  on  her  things  and  we  started. 

We  found  him  by  the  entrance  to  one  of  the 
big  buildings  with  his  papers  in  a  strap 
thrown  over  his  shoulder.  He  had  one  paper 
in  his  hand  and  was  offering  it,  perhaps  a  bit 
shyly,  to  each  passer-by  with  a  quiet,  "Paper, 
sir?"  We  watched  him  a  moment  and  Ruth 
kept  a  tight  grip  on  my  arm. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "what  do  you  think  of  him?" 

"Billy,"  she  said  with  a  little  tremble  in  her 
voice,  "I'm  proud  of  him." 

"He'll  do,"  I  said. 

Then  I  said : 

"Wait  here  a  moment." 

I  took  a  nickel  from  my  pocket  and  hurried 
towards  him  as  though  I  were  one  of  the  crowd 
hustling  for  the  train.     I  stopped  in  front  of 


264  ONE  WAY  OUT 

him  and  he  handed  me  a  paper  without  looking 
up.  He  began  to  make  change  and  it  wasn't 
until  he  handed  me  back  my  three  coppers  that 
he  saw  who  I  was.     Then  he  grinned. 

"Hello,  Dad/'  he  said. 

Then  he  asked  quickly, 

"Where's  mother?" 

But  Ruth  couldn't  wait  any  longer  and  she 
came  hurrying  up  and  placed  her  hand  under- 
neath the  papers  to  see  if  they  were  too  heavy 
for  him. 

Dick  earned  three  dollars  that  first  week  and 
he  never  fell  below  this  during  the  summer. 
Sometimes  he  went  as  high  as  five  and  when  it 
came  time  for  him  to  go  to  school  again  he  had 
about  seventy-five  regular  customers.  He  had 
been  kept  out  of  doors  between  six  and  seven 
hours  a  day.  The  contact  with  a  new  type  of 
boy  and  even  the  contact  with  the  brisk  busi- 
ness men  who  were  his  customers  had  sharp- 
ened up  his  wits  all  round.  In  the  ten  weeks 
he  saved  over  forty  dollars.  I  wanted  him  to 
put  this  in  the  bank  but  he  insisted  on  buying 
his  own  winter  clothes  with  it  and  on  the  whole 
I  thought  he'd  feel  better  if  I  let  him.  Then 
he  had  another  proposition.  He  wanted  to 
keep  his  evening  customers  through  the  year. 


DICK  FINDS  A  WAY  OUT,  TOO     265 

I  thought  it  was  going  to  be  pretty  hard  for 
him  to  do  this  with  his  school  work  but  we 
finally  agreed  to  let  him  try  it  for  a  while  any- 
way. After  all  I  didn't  like  to  think  he 
couldn't  do  what  other  boys  were  doing. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  SECOND  YEAR 

Now  as  far  as  proving  to  us  the  truth  of  my 
theory  that  an  inteUigent  able-bodied  Ameri- 
can ought  to  succeed  where  milhons  of  igno- 
rant, half-starved  emigrants  do  right  along, 
this  first  year  had  already  done  it.  It  had  also 
proved,  to  our  own  satisfaction  at  least,  that 
such  success  does  not  mean  a  return  to  a 
lower  standard  of  living  but  only  a  return  to  a 
simpler  standard  of  living.  With  soap  at  five 
cents  a  cake  it  isn't  poverty  that  breeds  filth,  but 
ignorance  and  laziness.  When  an  able-bodied 
fnan  can  earn  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  ladder 
a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day  and  a  boy  can  earn 
from  three  to  five  dollars  a  week  and  still  go 
to  school,  it  isn't  a  lack  of  money  that  makes 
the  bread  line;  it's  a  lack  of  horse  sense. 
We  found  that  we  could  maintain  a  higher 
standard  of  living  down  here  than  we  were 
able  to  maintain  in  our  old  life;  we  could 
live   more   sanely,    breathe   in   higher   ideals, 

266 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  267 

and  find  time  to  accept  more  opportuni- 
ties. The  sheer,  naked  conditions  were  better 
for  a  higher  Hfe  here  than  they  were  in  the 
suburbs. 

I'm  speaking  always  of  the  able-bodied  man. 
A  sick  man  is  a  sick  man  whether  he's  worth 
a  million  or  hasn't  a  cent.  He's  to  be  pitied. 
With  the  public  hospitals  what  they  are  to-day, 
you  can't  say  that  the  sick  millionaire  has  any 
great  advantage  over  the  sick  pauper.  Money 
makes  a  bigger  difference  of  course  to  the  sick 
man's  family  but  at  that  you'll  find  for  every 
widow  O'Toole,  a  widow  Bonnington  and  for 
every  widow  Bonnington  you'll  find  the  heart- 
broken widow  of  some  millionaire  who  doesn't 
consider  her  dollars  any  great  consolation  in 
such  a  crisis. 

Then,  too,  a  man  in  hard  luck  is  a  man  in 
hard  luck  whether  he  has  a  bank  account  or 
whether  he  hasn't.  I  pity  them  both.  If  a 
rich  man's  money  prevents  the  necessity  of  his 
airing  his  grief  in  public,  it  doesn't  help  him 
much  when  he's  alone  in  his  castle.  It  seems 
to  me  that  each  class  has  its  own  peculiar  mis- 
fortunes and  that  money  breeds  about  as  much 
trouble  as  it  kills.  To  my  mind  once  a  man 
earns  enough  to  buy  himself  a  little  food,  put 


268  ONE  WAY  OUT 

any  sort  of  a  roof  over  his  head,  and  keep  him- 
self warm,  he  has  everything  for  which  money 
is  absokitely  essential.  This  much  he  can 
always  get  at  the  bottom.  And  this  much  is 
all  the  ammunition  a  man  needs  for  as  good 
a  fight  as  it's  in  him  to  put  up.  It  gives  him  a 
chance  for  an  extra  million  over  his  nine  dol- 
lars a  week  if  he  wants  it.  But  the  point  I 
'learned  down  here  is  that  the  million  is  extra — 
it  isn't  essential.  Its  possession  doesn't  make  a 
Paradise  free  from  sickness  and  worry  and 
hard  luck,  and  the  lack  of  it  doesn't  make  a 
Hell's  Kitchen  where  there  is  nothing  but  sick- 
ness and  trouble  and  where  happiness  cannot 
enter. 

As  I  say,  I  consider  this  first  year  the  big 
year  because  it  taught  me  these  things.  In  a 
sense  the  value  of  my  diary  ends  here.  Once 
I  was  able  to  understand  that  I  had  everything 
and  more  that  the  early  pioneers  had  and  that 
all  I  needed  to  do  to-day  was  to  live  as  they  did 
and  fight  as  they  did,  I  had  all  the  inspiration  a 
man  needs  in  order  to  live  and  in  order  to  feel 
that  he's  living.  In  looking  back  on  the  subur- 
ban life  at  the  end  of  this  first  twelve  months, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  the  thing  which  made  it  so 
ghastly  was  just  this  lack  of  inspiration  that 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  269 

comes  with  the  blessed  privilege  of  fighting. 
That  other  was  a  waiting  game  and  no  help 
for  it.  I  was  a  shadow  living  in  the  land  of 
shadows  with  nothing  to  hit  out  at,  nothing  to 
feel  the  sting  of  my  fist  against.  The  fight  was 
going  on  above  me  and  below  me  and  we  in 
the  middle  only  heard  the  din  of  it.  It  was  as 
though  we  had  climbed  half  way  up  a  rope 
leading  from  a  pit  to  the  surface.  We  had 
climbed  as  far  as  we  could  and  unless  they 
hauled  from  above  we  had  to  stay  there.  If 
we  let  go — poor  devils,  we  thought  there  was 
nothing  but  brimstone  below  us.  So  we 
couldn't  do  much  but  hold  on  and  kick — at 
nothing. 

But  down  here  if  a  man  had  any  kick  in  him, 
he  had  something  to  kick  against.  When  he 
struck  out  with  his  feet  they  met  something; 
when  he  shot  a  blow  from  the  shoulder  he  felt 
an  impact.  If  he  didn't  like  one  trade  he  could 
learn  another.  It  took  no  capital.  If  he 
didn't  like  his  house,  he  could  move ;  he  wasn't 
tearing  up  anything  by  the  roots.  If  he  didn't 
like  his  foreman,  he  could  work  under  another. 
It  didn't  mean  the  sacrifice  of  any  past.  If  he 
found  a  chance  to  black  boots  or  sell  papers,  he 
could  use  it.     His  neighbors   wouldn't  exile 


270  ONE  WAY  OUT 

him.  He  was  as  free  as  the  winds  and  what 
he  didn't  hke  he  could  change.  I  don't  sup- 
pose there  is  any  human  being  on  earth  so  in- 
dependent as  an  able-bodied  working-man. 

The  record  of  the  next  three  years  only 
traces  a  slow,  steady  strengthening  of  my  po- 
sition. Not  one  of  us  had  any  set-back 
through  sickness  because  I  considered  our 
health  as  so  much  capital  and  guarded  it  as 
carefully  as  a  banker  does  his  money.  I  was 
afraid  at  first  of  the  city  water  but  I  found  it 
was  as  pure  as  spring  water.  It  was  protected 
from  its  very  source  and  was  stored  in  a  care- 
fully guarded  reservoir.  It  was  frequently 
analyzed  and  there  wasn't  a  case  of  typhoid  in 
the  ward  which  could  be  traced  to  the  water. 
The  milk  was  the  great  danger  down  here.  At 
the  small  shops  it  was  often  carelessly  stored 
and  carelessly  handled.  From  the  beginning,  I 
bought  our  milk  up  town  though  I  had  to  pay 
a  cent  a  quart  more  for  it.  Ruth  picked  out  all 
the  fish  and  meat  and  of  course  nothing  tainted 
in  this  line  could  be  sold  to  her.  We  ate  few 
canned  goods  and  then  nothing  but  canned 
vegetables.  Many  of  our  neighbors  used 
canned  meats.  I  don't  know  whether  any 
sickness  resulted  from  this  or  not  but  I  know 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  271 

that  they  often  left  the  stuff  for  hours  in  an 
opened  tin.  Many  of  the  tenements  swarmed 
with  flies  in  the  summer  although  it  was  a 
small  matter  to  keep  them  out  of  four  rooms. 
So  if  the  canned  stuff  didn't  get  infected  it  was 
a  wonder. 

The  sanitary  arrangements  in  the  flat  were 
good,  though  here  again  many  families  pro- 
ceeded to  make  them  bad  about  as  fast  as  they 
could.  These  people  didn't  seem  to  mind  dirt 
in  any  form.  It  was  a  perfectly  simple  and 
inexpensive  matter  to  keep  themselves  and 
their  surroundings  clean  if  they  cared  to  take 
the  trouble. 

Then  the  roof  contributed  largely  towards 
our  good  health.  Ruth  spent  a  great  deal  of 
time  up  there  during  the  day  and  the  boy  slept 
there  during  the  summer. 

Our  simple  food  and  exercise  also  helped, 
while  for  me  nothing  could  have  been  better 
than  my  daily  plunge  in  the  salt  water.  I 
kept  this  up  as  long  as  the  bath  house  was 
open  and  in  the  winter  took  a  cold  sponge 
and  rub-down  every  night.  So,  too,  did  the 
boy. 

For  the  rest,  we  all  took  sensible  precautions 
against  exposure.     We  dressed  warmly  and 


272  ONE  WAY  OUT 

kept  our  feet  dry.  Here  again  our  neighbors 
were  insanely  foolish.  They  never  changed 
their  clothes  until  bed  time,  didn't  keep  them 
clean  or  fresh  at  any  time,  and  they  lived  in  a 
temperature  of  eighty-five  with  the  air  foul 
from  many  breaths  and  tobacco  smoke.  Even 
the  children  had  to  breathe  this.  Then  both 
men  and  women  went  out  from  this  into  the 
cold  air  either  over-dressed  or  under-dressed. 
The  result  of  such  foolishness  very  naturally 
was  tuberculosis,  pneumonia,  typhoid  and 
about  everything  else  that  contributes  to  a 
high  death  rate.  Not  only  this  but  one  person 
suffering  from  any  of  these  things  infected  a 
whole  family. 

Such  conditions  were  not  due  to  a  lack 
of  money  but  to  a  lack  of  education.  The 
new  generation  was  making  some  changes 
however.  Often  a  girl  or  boy  in  the  public 
schools  would  come  home  and  transform  the 
three  or  four  rooms  though  always  under  pro- 
test from  the  elders.  Clean  surroundings  and 
fresh  air  troubled  the  old  folks. 

Ruth,  too,  was  responsible  for  many  changes 
for  the  better  in  the  lives  of  these  people.  Her 
very  presence  in  a  room  was  an  inspiration  for 
cleanliness.     Her  clothes  were  no  better  than 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  273 

theirs  but  she  stood  out  among  them  like  a 
vestal  virgin.  She  came  into  their  quarters 
and  made  the  women  ashamed  that  the  rooms 
were  not  better  fitted  to  receive  so  pure  a  be- 
ing. You  would  scarcely  have  recognized 
Michele's  rooms  at  the  end  of  the  first  year. 
The  windows  were  cleaned,  the  floors  scrubbed,, 
and  even  the  bed  linen  was  washed  occasionally. 
The  baby  gained  in  weight  and  Michele  when 
he  wanted  to  smoke  either  sat  outside  on  the 
door  step  or  by  an  open  window.  But  Michele 
was  an  exception. 

Ruth's  efforts  were  not  confined  to  our  own 
building  either.  Her  influence  spread  down 
the  street  and  through  the  whole  district.  The 
district  nurse  was  a  frequent  visitor  and  kept 
her  informed  of  all  her  cases.  Wherever  Ruth 
could  do  anything  she  did  it.  Her  first  object 
was  always  to  awaken  the  women  to  the  value 
of  cleanliness  and  after  that  she  tried  her  best 
to  teach  them  little  ways  of  preparing  their 
food  more  economically.  Few  of  them  knew 
the  value  of  oatmeal  for  instance  though  of 
course  their  macaroni  and  spaghetti  was  a 
pretty  good  substitute.  In  fact  Ruth  picked  up 
many  new  dishes  of  this  sort  for  herself  from 
among  them. 


274  ONE  WAY  OUT 

Some  families  spent  as  much  for  beer  as  for 
milk.  Ruth  couldn't  change  that  practice  but 
she  did  make  them  more  careful  where  they 
bought  their  milk — especially  when  there  was  a 
baby  in  the  house.  Then,  too,  she  shared  all 
her  secrets  of  where  and  how  to  buy  cheaply. 
Sometimes  advantage  was  taken  of  these  hints, 
but  more  often  not.  They  didn't  pay  much 
more  for  many  articles  than  she  did  but  they 
didn't  get  as  good  quality.  However  as  long 
as  the  food  tasted  good  and  satisfied  their 
hunger  you  couldn't  make  them  take  an  extra 
effort  and  get  stuff  because  it  was  more  nutri- 
tious or  more  healthful.  They  couldn't  think 
ahead  except  in  the  matter  of  saving  dollars 
and  cents. 

These  people  of  course  were  of  the  lower 
class.  There  was  another  element  of  decidedly 
finer  quality.  Giuseppe  for  example  was  one 
of  these  and  there  were  hundreds  of  others.  It 
was  among  these  that  Ruth's  influence  counted 
for  the  most.  They  not  only  took  advan- 
tage of  her  superior  intelligence  in  conduct- 
ing their  households  but  they  breathed  in 
something  of  the  soul  of  her.  When  I  saw 
them  send  for  her  in  their  grief  and  in  their 
joy,  when  I  heard  them  ask  her  advice  with  al- 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  275 

most  the  confidence  with  which  they  prayed, 
when  I  heard  them  give  her  such  names  as 
"the  angel  mother,"  "the  blessed  American 
saint,"  I  felt  very  proud  and  very  humble. 
Such  things  made  me  glad  in  another  way  for 
the  change  which  had  taken  her  out  of  the  old 
life  where  such  qualities  were  lost  and  brought 
her  down  here  where  they  counted  for  so  much. 
These  people  stripped  of  convention  live  with 
their  hearts  very  near  the  surface.  They 
don't  try  to  conceal  their  emotions  and  so  you 
are  brought  very  quickly  into  close  touch  with 
them.  Ruth  herself  was  a  good  deal  like  that 
and  so  her  influence  for  a  day  among  them 
counted  for  as  much  as  a  year  with  the  old 
crowd. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  resumed  my  night  school 
at  the  end  of  the  summer  vacation  and  was 
glad  to  get  back  to  it.  I  had  missed  the  work 
and  went  at  it  this  next  winter  with  increased 
eagerness  to  perfect  myself  in  my  trade. 

During  this  second  year,  too,  I  never  re- 
laxed my  efforts  to  keep  my  gang  up  to 
standard  and  whenever  possible  to  better  it  by 
the  addition  of  new  men.  Every  month  I 
thought  I  increased  the  respect  of  the  men  for 
me  by  my  fair  dealing  with  them.     I  don't 


276  ONE  WAY  OUT 

mean  to  say  I  fully  realized  the  expectations  of 
^vhich  I  had  dreamed.  I  suppose  that  at  first 
I  dreamed  a  bit  wildly.  There  was  very  little 
sentiment  in  the  relation  of  the  men  to  me, 
although  there  w^as  some.  Still  I  don't  want 
to  give  the  impression  that  I  made  of  them  a 
gang  of  blind  personal  followers  such  as  some 
religious  cranks  get  together.  It  was  neces- 
sary to  make  them  see  that  it  was  for  their  in- 
terest to  work  for  me  and  with  me  and  that  I 
did  do.  I  made  them  see  also  that  in  order  to 
work  for  me  they  had  to  work  a  little  more 
faithfully  than  they  worked  for  others.  So  it 
was  a  straight  business  proposition.  What 
sentiment  there  was  came  through  the  personal 
interest  I  took  in  them  outside  of  their  work. 
It  was  this  which  made  them  loyal  instead  of 
merely  hard  working.  It  was  this  which  made 
them  my  gang  instead  of  Corkery's  gang — a 
thing  that  counted  for  a  good  deal  later  on. 

The  personal  reputation  I  had  won  gave  me 
new  opportunities  of  which  I  took  every  advan- 
tage this  second  year.  It  put  me  in  touch 
with  the  responsible  heads  of  departments. 
Through  them  I  was  able  to  acquire  a  much 
broader  and  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
business  as  a  whole.     I  asked  as  many  ques- 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  277 

tions  here  as  I  had  below.  I  received  more 
intelHgent  answers  and  was  able  to  understand 
them  more  intelligently.  I  not  only  learned 
prices  but  where  to  get  authoritative  prices. 
As  far  as  possible  I  made  myself  acquainted 
with  the  men  working  for  the  building  con- 
structors and  for  those  working  for  firms 
whose  specialty  was  the  tearing  down  of  build- 
ings. I  used  my  note-book  as  usual  and  en- 
tered the  names  of  every  man  who,  in  his  line, 
seemed  to  me  especially  valuable. 

And  everywhere,  I  found  that  my  experi- 
ment with  the  gang  was  well  known.  I  found 
also  that  my  tendency  for  asking  questions  was 
even  better  known.  It  passed  as  a  joke  in  a 
good  many  cases.  But  better  than  this  I  found 
that  I  had  established  a  reputation  for  sobri- 
ety, industry  and  level-headedness.  I  can't 
help  smiling  how  little  those  things  counted  for 
me  with  the  United  Woollen  or  when  I  sought 
work  after  leaving  that  company.  Here  they 
counted  for  a  lot.  I  realized  that  when  it  came 
time  for  me  to  seek  credit. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  didn't  neglect  the  fight 
for  clean  politics  in  my  ward. 

I  resigned  from  the  presidency  of  the  young 
men's  club  at  the  end  of  a  year  and  we  elected 


278  ONE  WAY  OUT 

a  young  lawyer  who  was  taking  a  great  inter- 
est in  the  work  down  here  to  fill  the  vacancy. 
That  was  a  fine  selection.  The  man  was  fresh 
from  the  law  school  and  was  full  of  ideals  which 
dated  back  to  the  Mayflower.  He  hadn't  been 
long  enough  in  the  world  to  have  them  dimmed 
and  was  full  of  energy.  He  took  hold  of  the 
original  idea  and  developed  it  until  the  organ- 
ization included  every  ward  in  this  section 
of  the  city.  He  held  rallies  every  month  and 
brought  down  big  speakers  and  kept  the  senti- 
ment of  the  youngsters  red  hot.  This  had  its 
effect  upon  the  older  men  and  before  we  knew 
it  we  had  a  machine  that  looked  like  a  real 
power  in  the  whole  city.  Sweeney  saw  it  and 
so  did  the  bigger  bosses  of  both  parties.  But 
the  president  kept  clear  of  alliances  with  any 
of  them.  He  stood  pat  with  what  promised  to 
be  a  balance  of  power,  ready  to  swing  it  to  the 
cleanest  man  of  either  party  who  came  up  for 
office. 

I  made  several  speeches  myself  though  it  was 
hard  work  for  me.  I  don't  run  to  that 
sort  of  thing.  I  did  it  however  just  be- 
cause I  didn't  like  it  and  because  I  felt  it 
was  the  duty  of  a  citizen  to  do  something 
now   and   then   he   doesn't   like   for   his   city 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  279 

and  his  country.  The  old  excuse  with  me 
had  been  that  poHtics  was  a  dirty  business 
at  best  and  that  it  ought  to  be  left  to  the  law- 
yers and  such  who  had  something  to  gain  from 
it.  The  only  men  I  ever  knew  who  went  into 
it  at  all  were  those  who  had  a  talent  for  it  and 
who  liked  it.  Of  course  that's  dead  wrong. 
A  man  who  won't  take  the  trouble  to  find  out 
about  the  men  up  for  office  and  who  won't 
bother  himself  to  get  out  and  hustle  for  the 
best  of  them  isn't  a  good  citizen  or  a  good 
American.  He  deserves  to  be  governed  by 
the  newcomers  and  deserves  all  they  hand  out 
to  him.  And  the  time  to  do  the  work  isn't 
when  a  man  is  up  for  president  of  the  United 
States,  it's  when  the  man  is  up  for  the  com- 
mon council.  The  higher  up  a  politician  gets, 
the  less  the  influence  of  the  single  voter  counts. 
It  was  in  the  spring  that  some  of  my  ideals 
received  a  set  back.  The  alderman  from  our 
ward  died  suddenly  and  Rafferty  was  naturally 
hot  after  the  vacancy.  He  came  to  see  me 
about  it,  but  before  he  broached  this  subject  he 
laid  another  before  me  that  took  away  my 
breath.  It  was  nothing  else  than  that  I  should 
go  into  partnership  with  him  under  the  firm 
name  of  "Carleton  and  Rafiferty."     I  couldn't 


28o  ONE  WAY  OUT 

believe  it  possible  that  he  was  in  a  position  to 
take  such  a  step  within  a  couple  of  years  of  dig- 
ging in  the  ditch.  But  when  he  explained  the 
scheme  to  me,  it  was  as  simple  as  rolling  off 
a  log.  A  firm  of  liquor  dealers  had  agreed  to 
back  him — form  a  stock  company  and  give  him 
a  third  interest  to  manage  it.  He  had  spoken 
to  them  of  me  and  said  he'd  do  it  if  they  would 
make  it  a  half  interest  and  give  us  each  a  quar- 
ter. 

"But  good  Lord,  Dan,"  I  said,  "we'd  have 
to  swing  a  lot  of  business  to  make  it  go." 

"Never  you  worry  about  thot,  mon,"  he  said. 
"I'll  fix  thot  all  right  if  I'm  elicted  to  the 
boord." 

"You  mean  city  contracts?"  I  said. 

"Sure." 

I  began  to  see.  The  liquor  house  was  look- 
ing for  more  licenses  and  would  get  their  pay 
out  of  Dan  even  if  the  firm  didn't  make  a  cent. 
But  Dan  with  such  capital  back  of  him  as  well 
as  his  aldermanic  power  was  sure  to  get  the 
contracts.  He  would  leave  the  actual  work 
to  me  and  my  men. 

I  sat  down  and  for  two  hours  tried  to  make 
Dan  realize  how  this  crowd  wanted  to  use  him. 
I  couldn't.     In  addition  to  being  blinded  by 


THE  SECOND  YEAR  281 

his  overwhelming  ambition,  he  actually  couldn't 
see  anything  crooked  in  what  they  wanted. 
He  couldn't  understand  why  he  should  let  such 
an  opportunity  drop  for  someone  else  to  pick 
up.  He  had  slipped  out  of  my  hands  com- 
pletely. This  was  where  the  difference  be- 
tween five  or  six  years  in  America  as  against 
two  hundred  showed  itself.  And  yet  what 
was  the  old  stock  doing  to  offset  such  personal 
ambition  and  energy  as  Rafferty  stood  for? 

"No,  Dan,"  I  said,  *T  can't  do  it.  And 
what's  more  I  won't  let  you  do  it  if  I  can  help 
it." 

"Phot  do  yez  mane?"  he  asked. 

"That  I'm  going  to  fight  you  tooth  and  nail," 
I  said. 

He  turned  red.     Then  he  grinned. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "it'll  be  a  foine  fight  any- 
how." 

I  went  to  the  president  of  the  club  and  told 
him  that  here  was  where  we  had  to  stop  Raf- 
ferty.    He  listened  and  then  he  said, 

"Well,  here's  where  we  do  stop  him." 

We  went  at  the  job  in  whirlwind  fashion. 
I  spoke  a  half  dozen  times  but  to  save  my  life 
I  couldn't  say  what  I  wanted  to  say.  Every 
time  I  stood  up  I  seemed  to  see  Dan's  big  round 


282  ONE  WAY  OUT 

face  and  I  remembered  the  kindly  things  he 
used  to  do  for  the  old  ladies.  And  I  knew  that 
Dan's  offer  to  take  me  into  partnership  wasn't 
prompted  altogether  by  selfish  motives.  He 
could  have  found  other  men  who  would  have 
served  his  purpose  better. 

In  the  meanwhile  Dan  had  organized  "Social 
Clubs"  in  half  a  dozen  sections.  For  the  first 
few  weeks  of  the  campaign  I  never  heard  of  him 
except  as  leading  grand  marches.  But  the  last 
week  he  waded  in.  There's  no  use  going  into 
details.  He  beat  us.  He  rolled  up  a  tremen- 
dous majority.  The  president  of  the  club 
couldn't  understand  it.     He  was  discouraged. 

"I  had  every  boy  in  the  ward  out  working," 
he  said. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "but  Dan  had  every  grand- 
mother and  every  daughter  and  every  grand- 
daughter out  working." 

Dan  came  around  to  the  flat  one  night  after 
the  election.  He  was  as  happy  as  a  boy  over 
his  victory. 

"Carleton,"  he  said,  again,  "it's  too  domd 
bad  ye  ain't  an  Irishmon." 

After  he  had  gone,  Ruth  said  to  me : 

"I  don't  think  Mr.  Rafferty  will  make  a  bad 
alderman  at  all." 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

MATURING  PLANS 

I  received  several  offers  from  other 
firms  and  as  a  result  of  these  my  wages  were 
advanced  first  to  three  dollars  a  day  and  then 
to  three  and  a  half.  Still  Ruth  refused  to 
take  things  easier  by  increasing  the  household 
expenses.  During  the  third  year  we  lived  ex- 
actly as  we  had  lived  during  the  first  year.  In 
a  way  it  was  easier  to  do  this  now  that  we  knew 
there  was  no  actual  necessity  for  it.  Of 
course  it  was  easier,  too,  now  that  we  had  fallen 
into  a  familiar  routine.  The  things  which  had 
seemed  to  us  like  necessities  when  we  came 
down  here  now  seemed  like  luxuries.  And  we 
none  of  us  had  either  the  craving  for  lux- 
uries or  the  time  to  enjoy  them  had  we 
wished  to  spend  the  money  on  them.  In 
the  matter  of  clothes  we  cared  for  nothing 
except  to  be  warmly  and  cleanly  dressed. 
Strip  the  problem  of  clothes  down  to  this 
and   it's   not   a  very   serious   one.     To   real- 

283 


284  ONE  WAY  OUT 

ize  that  you've  only  to  remember  how  the 
average  farmer  dresses  or  how  the  homesteader 
dresses.  It's  only  when  you  introduce  style 
and  the  conventions  that  the  matter  becomes 
complicated.  Perhaps  it  was  easier  for  me  to 
dress  as  I  pleased  than  for  the  boy  or  Ruth 
but  even  they  got  right  down  to  bed  rock. 
The  boy  wore  grey  flannel  shirts  and  so  at  a 
stroke  did  away  with  collars  and  cuffs.  For 
the  rest  a  simple  blue  suit,  a  cap,  stockings 
and  shoes  were  all  he  needed  outside  his  under 
clothes  which  Ruth  made  for  him.  Ruth  her- 
self dressed  in  plain  gowns  that  she  could  do 
up  herself.  For  the  street,  she  still  had  the 
costumes  she  came  down  here  with.  None  of 
us  kept  any  extra  clothes  for  parade. 

We  carried  out  the  same  idea  in  our  food, 
as  I've  tried  to  show;  we  insisted  that  it  must 
be  wholesome  and  that  there  must  be  enough 
of  it.  Those  were  the  only  two  things  that 
counted.  Variety  except  of  the  humblest 
kind,  we  didn't  strive  for.  I've  seen  cook 
books  which  contain  five  hundred  pages;  if 
Ruth  compiled  one  it  wouldn't  have  twenty. 
Here  again  the  farmer  and  the  pioneer  were 
our  models.  If  anyone  in  the  country  had 
lived  the  way  we  were  living,  it  wouldn't  have 


MATURING  PLANS  285 

seemed  worth  telling  about.  I  find  the  fact 
which  amazes  people  in  our  experiment  was 
that  we  should  have  tried  the  same  standard 
in  the  city.  Everyone  seems  to  think  this 
was  a  most  dangerous  thing  to  attempt.  The 
men  who  on  a  camping  trip  consider  them- 
selves well  fed  on  such  food  as  we  had  to  eat 
expect  to  starve  to  death  if  placed  on  the  same 
diet  once  within  sound  of  the  trolley  cars. 
And  on  the  camping  trip  they  do  ten  times  the 
physical  labor  and  do  it  month  after  month  in 
air  that  whets  the  appetite.  Then  they  come 
back  and  boast  how  strong  they've  grown,  and 
begin  to  eat  like  hogs  again  and  wonder  why 
they  get  sick. 

We  camped  out  in  the  city — that's  all  we 
did.  And  we  did  just  what  every  man  in  camp 
does;  we  stripped  down  to  essentials.  We 
could  have  lived  on  pork  scraps  and  potatoes  if 
that  had  been  necessary.  We  could  have  wor- 
ried along  on  hard  tack  and  jerked  beef  if 
we'd  been  pressed  hard  enough.  Men  chase 
moose,  and  climb  mountains  and  prospect  for 
gold  on  such  food.  Why  in  Heaven's  name 
can't  they  shovel  dirt  on  the  same  diet? 

So,  too,  about  amusements.  When  a  man 
is  trying  to  clear  thirty  acres  of  pine  stumps, 


286  ONE  WAY  OUT 

he  doesn't  fret  at  the  end  of  the  day  because 
he  can't  go  to  the  theatre.  He  doesn't  want 
to  go.  Bed  and  his  dreams  are  amusement 
enough  for  him.  And  he  isn't  called  a  low- 
browed savage  because  he's  satisfied  with  this. 
He's  called  a  hero.  The  world  at  large 
doesn't  say  that  he  has  lowered  the  standard 
of  living;  it  boasts  about  him  for  a  true  Amer- 
ican. Why  can't  a  man  lay  bricks  without  the 
theatre  ? 

As  a  matter  of  fact  however  we  could  have 
had  even  the  amusements  if  we'd  wanted  them. 
For  those  who  needed  such  things  in  order  to 
preserve  a  high  standard  of  living  they  were 
here.  And  I  don't  say  they  didn't  serve  a  use- 
ful purpose.  What  I  do  say  is  that  they  aren't 
absolutely  necessary;  that  a  high  standard  of 
living  isn't  altogether  dependent  on  sirloin 
steaks,  starched  collars  and  music  halls  as  I've 
heard  a  good  many  people  claim. 

This  third  year  finished  my  course  in 
masonry.  I  came  out  in  June  with  a  trade  at 
which  I  could  earn  from  three  dollars  to  five 
dollars  a  day  according  to  my  skill.  It  was  a 
trade,  too,  where  there  was  pretty  generally 
steady  employment.  A  good  mason  is  more  in 
demand  than  a  good  lawyer.     Not  only  that 


MATURING  PLANS  287 

but  a  good  mason  can  find  work  in  any  city 
in  this  country.  Wherever  he  lands,  he's  sure 
of  a  comfortable  living.  I  was  told  that  out 
west  some  men  were  making  as  high  as  ten 
dollars  a  day. 

I  had  also  qualified  in  a  more  modest  way  as 
a  mechanical  draftsman.  I  could  draw  my 
own  plans  for  work  and  what  was  more  useful 
still,  do  my  work  from  the  plans  of  others. 

By  now  I  had  also  become  a  fairly  proficient 
Italian  scholar.  I  could  speak  the  language 
fluently  and  read  it  fairly  well.  It  wasn't  the 
fault  of  Giuseppe  if  my  pronunciation  was 
sometimes  queer  and  if  very  often  I  used  the 
jargon  of  the  provinces.  My  object  was  served 
as  long  as  I  could  make  myself  understood  to 
the  men.     And  I  could  do  that  perfectly. 

This  year  I  watched  Rafferty's  progress  with 
something  like  envy.  The  firm  was  "D.  Raf- 
ferty  and  Co."  Within  two  months  I  began 
to  see  the  name  on  his  dump  carts  whenever  I 
went  to  work.  Within  six  months  he  secured 
a  big  contract  for  repaving  a  long  stretch  of 
street  in  our  ward.  I  knew  our  firm  had  put 
in  a  bid  on  it  and  knew  they  must  have  been 
in  a  position  to  put  in  a  mighty  low  bid.  I 
didn't  wonder  so  much  about  how  Dan  got  this 


288  ONE  WAY  OUT 

away  from  us  as  I  did  how  he  got  it  away  from 
Sweeney.  That  was  explained  to  me  later 
when  I  found  that  Sweeney  was  in  reality  back 
of  the  liquor  dealers.  Sweeney  owned  about 
half  their  stores  and  had  taken  this  method  to 
bring  Dan  back  to  the  fold,  once  he  found  he 
couldn't  check  his  progress. 

During  this  year  Dan  bought  a  new  house 
and  married.  We  went  to  the  wedding  and  it 
was  a  grand  affair  with  half  the  ward  there. 
Mrs.  Rafferty  was  a  nice  looking  girl,  daugh- 
ter of  a  well-to-do  Irishman  in  the  real  estate 
business.  She  had  received  a  good  education 
in  a  convent  and  was  altogether  a  girl  Dan 
could  be  proud  of.  The  house  was  an  old- 
fashioned  structure  built  by  one  of  the  old  fam- 
ilies who  had  been  forced  to  move  by  the  for- 
eign invasion.  Mrs.  Rafferty  had  furnished  it 
somewhat  lavishly  but  comfortably. 

As  Ruth  and  I  came  back  that  night  I  said : 

"I  suppose  if  it  had  been  'Carleton  and  Raf- 
ferty' I  might  have  had  a  house  myself  by 
now." 

*T  guess  it's  better  as  it  is,  Billy,"  she  said, 
with  a  smile. 

Of  course  it  was  better  but  I  began  to  feel 
discontented  with  my  present  position.     I  felt, 


MATURING  PLANS  289 

uncomfortable  at  still  being  merely  a  foreman. 
When  we  reached  the  house  Ruth  and  I  took 
the  bank  book  and  figured  out  just  what  our 
capital  in  money  was.  Including  the  boy's 
savings  which  we  could  use  in  an  emergency 
it  amounted  to  fourteen  hundred  dollars. 
During  the  first  year  we  saved  one  hundred  and 
twenty  dollars,  which  added  to  the  eighty  we 
came  down  here  with,  made  two  hundred  dol- 
lars. During  the  second  year  we  saved  three 
hundred  and  ninety  dollars.  During  the  third 
year  we  saved  six  hundred  dollars.  This  made 
a  total  of  eleven  hundred  and  ninety  dollars  in 
the  bank.  The  boy  had  saved  more  than  two 
hundred  dollars  over  his  clothes  in  the  last 
two  years. 

It  was  Rafiferty  who  helped  me  turn  this 
over  in  a  real  estate  deal  in  which  he  was  inter- 
ested. I  made  six  hundred  dollars  by  that. 
Everything  Rafferty  touched  now  seemed  to 
turn  to  money.  One  reason  was  that  he  was 
thrown  in  contact  with  money-makers  all  of 
whom  were  anxious  to  help  him.  He  received 
any  number  of  tips  from  those  eager  to  win 
his  favor.  Among  the  tips  were  many  that 
were  legitimate  enough  like  the  one  he  shared 
with  me  but  there  were  also  many  that  were 


290  ONE  WAY  OUT 

not  quite  so  above-board.  But  to  Dan  all  was' 
fair  in  business  and  politics.  Yet  I  don't  know 
a  man  I'd  sooner  trust  upon  his  honor  in  a 
purely  personal  matter.  He  wouldn't  graft 
from  his  friends  however  much  he  might  from 
the  city.  In  fact  his  whole  code  as  far  as  I 
could  see  was  based  upon  this  imswerving  loy- 
alty to  his  friends  and  scrupulous  honesty  in 
dealing  with  them.  It  was  only  when  honesty 
became  abstract  that  he  couldn't  see  it.  You 
could  put  a  thousand  dollars  in  gold  in  his 
keeping  without  security  and  come  back  twenty 
years  later  and  find  it  safe.  But  he'd  scheme 
a  week  to  frame  up  a  deal  to  cheat  the  city  out 
of  a  hundred  dollars.  And  he'd  do  it  with  his 
head  in  the  air  and  a  grin  on  his  face.  I've 
seen  the  same  thing  done  by  educated  men  who 
knew  better.  I  wouldn't  trust  the  latter  with 
a  ten  cent  piece  without  first  consulting  a 
lawyer. 

The  money  I  had  saved  didn't  represent  all 
my  capital.  I  had  as  my  chief  asset  the  gang 
of  men  I  had  drilled.  Everything  else  being 
equal  they  stood  ready  to  work  for  me  in  pref- 
erence to  any  other  man  in  the  city.  In  fact 
their  value  as  a  machine  depended  on  me.  If 
I  had  been  discharged  and  another  man  put  in 


MATURING  PLANS 


291 


my  place  the  gang  would  have  resolved  itself 
again  into  merely  one  hundred  day  labor- 
ers. Nor  was  this  my  only  other  asset.  I 
had  established  myself  as  a  reliable  man  in 
the  eyes  of  a  large  group  of  business  men. 
This  meant  credit.  Nor  must  I  leave  out  Dan 
and  his  influence.  He  stood  ready  to  back  me 
not  only  financially  but  personally.  And  he 
knew  me  well  enough  to  know  this  would 
not  involve  anything  but  a  business  obligation 
on  my  part. 

With  these  things  in  mind  then  I  felt  ready 
to  take  a  radical  departure  from  the  routine 
of  my  life  when  the  opportunity  came.  But 
I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  wait  for  the  oppor- 
tunity. I  must  have  a  chance  which  would  not 
involve  too  much  capital  and  in  which  my  chief 
asset  would  be  the  gang.  Furthermore  it  must 
be  a  chance  that  I  could  use  without  resorting 
to  pull.  Not  only  that  but  it  must  be  some- 
thing on  which  I  could  prove  myself  to  such 
good  advantage  that  other  business  would  be 
sure  to  follow.  I  couldn't  cut  loose  with  my 
men  and  leave  them  stranded  at  the  end  of  a 
single  job. 

I  watched  every  public  proposal  and  analyzed 
them  all.     I  found  that  they  very  quickly  re- 


292  ONE  WAY  OUT 

solved  themselves  into  Dan's  crowd.  I  kept 
my  ears  wide  open  for  private  contracts  but  by 
the  time  I  heard  of  any  I  was  too  late.  So  I 
waited  for  perhaps  three  months.  Then  I  saw 
in  the  daily  paper  what  seemed  to  me  my  oppor- 
tunity. It  was  an  open  bid  for  some  park  con- 
struction which  was  under  the  guardianship  of 
a  commission.  It  was  a  grading  job  and  so 
would  require  nothing  but  the  simplest  equip- 
ment. I  looked  over  the  ground  and  figured 
out  the  gang's  part  in  it  first.  Then  I  went 
to  Rafferty  and  told  him  what  I  wanted  in  the 
way  of  teams.  I  wanted  only  the  carts  and 
horses — I  would  put  my  own  men  to  work  with 
them.  I  asked  him  to  take  my  note  for  the 
cost. 

*T'll  take  your  word,  Carleton,"  he  said. 
"Thot's  enough." 

But  I  insisted  on  the  note.  He  finally 
agreed  and  offered  to  secure  for  me  anything 
I  wanted  for  the  work. 

I  went  back  to  Ruth  and  we  sat  down  and 
figured  the  matter  all  over  once  again.  We 
stripped  it  down  to  a  figure  so  low  that  my 
chief  profit  would  come  on  the  time  I  could 
save  with  my  machine.  I  allowed  for  the 
scantiest  profit  on  dirt  and  rock  though  I  had 


MATURING  PLANS 


293 


secured  a  good  option  on  what  I  needed  of  this. 
I  was  lucky  in  finding  a  short  haul  though  I 
had  had  my  eye  on  this  for  some  time.  Of  one 
thing  I  was  extremely  careful — to  make  my 
estimate  large  enough  so  that  I  couldn't  pos- 
sibly lose  anything  but  my  profit.  Even  if  I 
wasn't  able  to  carry  out  my  hope  of  being  able 
to  speed  up  the  gang  I  should  be  able  to  pay 
my  bills  and  come  out  of  the  venture  even. 

Ruth  and  I  worked  for  a  week  on  it  and 
when  I  saw  the  grand  total  it  took  away  my 
breath.  I  wasn't  used  to  dealing  in  big 
figures.  They  frightened  me.  I've  learned 
since  then  that  it's  a  good  deal  easier  in  some 
ways  to  deal  in  thousands  than  it  is  in  ones. 
You  have  wider  margins,  for  one  thing.  But 
I  must  confess  that  now  I  was  scared.  I  was 
ready  to  back  out.  When  I  turned  to  Ruth 
for  the  final  decision,  she  looked  into  my  eyes 
a  second  just  as  she  did  when  I  asked  her  to 
marry  me  and  said, 

"Go  after  it,  Billy.  You  can  do  it." 
That  night  I  sent  in  my  estimate  endorsed 
by  Dan  and  a  friend  of  his  and  for  a  month 
I  waited.  I  didn't  sleep  as  well  as  usual  but 
Ruth  didn't  seem  to  be  bothered.  Then  one 
night  when  I  came  home  I  found  Ruth  at  the 


294  ONE  WAY  OUT 

outside  door  waiting  for  me.  I  knew  the  thing 
had  been  decided.  She  came  up  to  me  and  put 
her  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  patted  me. 

*'It's  yours,  Billy,"  she  said. 

My  heart  stopped  beating  for  a  moment  and 
then  it  went  on  again  beating  a  dozen  ticks  to 
the  second. 

The  next  day  I  closed  up  my  options.  I 
went  to  Corkery,  gave  my  notice  and  told  him 
what  I  was  going  to  do.  He  was  madder 
than  a  hornet.  I  listened  to  what  he  had  to 
say  and  went  off  without  a  word  in  reply.  He 
was  so  unreasonable  that  it  didn't  seem  worth 
it.  That  noon  I  rounded  up  the  men  and  told 
them  frankly  that  I  was  going  to  start  in  busi- 
ness for  myself  and  needed  a  hundred  men. 
I  told  them  also  that  this  first  job  might  last 
only  four  or  five  weeks  and  that  while  I  had 
nothing  definite  in  mind  after  that  I  was  in 
hopes  to  secure  in  the  meanwhile  other  con- 
tracts. I  said  this  would  be  largely  up  to 
them.  I  told  them  that  I  didn't  want  a  man 
to  come  who  wasn't  willing  to  take  the  chance. 
Of  course  it  was  something  of  a  chance  be- 
cause Corkery  had  been  giving  them  steady 
employment.  Still  it  wasn't  a  very  big  chance 
because  there  was  always  work  for  such  men. 


MATURING  PLANS  295 

I  watched  anxiously  to  see  how  they  would 
take  it.  I  felt  that  the  truth  of  my  theories 
were  having  their  hardest  test.  When  they 
let  out  a  cheer  and  started  towards  me  in  a 
mass  I  saw  blurry. 

I'll  never  forget  the  feeling  I  had  when  I 
started  out  in  the  morning  that  first  day  as  an 
independent  contractor;  I'll  never  forget  my 
feeling  as  I  reached  the  work  an  hour  ahead 
of  my  men  and  waited  for  them  to  come  strag- 
gling up.  I  seemed  closer  than  ever  to  my 
ancestors.  I  felt  as  my  great-great-grandfa- 
ther must  have  felt  when  he  cut  loose  from  the 
Massachusetts  colony  and  went  off  down  into 
the  unknown  Connecticut.  I  was  full  enough 
of  confidence  but  I  knew  that  a  month  might 
drive  me  back  again.  Deeper  than  this  trivial 
fear  however  there  was  something  bigger — 
something  finer.  I  was  a  free  man  in  a  larger 
way  than  I  had  ever  been  before.  It  made  me 
feel  an  American  to  the  very  core  of  my  mar- 
row. 

The  work  was  all  staked  out  but  before  the 
men  began  I  called  them  all  together.  I  didn't 
make  a  speech;  I  just  said: 

"Men — I've  estimated  that  this  can  be  done 
by  an  ordinary  bunch  of  men  in  forty  days; 


296  ONE  WAY  OUT 

I've  banked  that  you  can  do  it  in  thirty.  If 
you  succeed,  it  gives  me  profit  enough  to  take 
another  contract.     Do  the  best  you  can." 

There  wasn't  a  mother's  son  among  them 
who  didn't  appreciate  my  position.  There 
were  a  good  many  who  knew  Ruth  and  knew 
her  through  what  she  had  done  for  their  fam- 
ihes,  and  these  understood  it  even  better.  The 
dirt  began  to  fly  and  it  was  a  pretty  sight  to 
watch.  I  never  spoke  again  to  the  men.  I 
simply  directed  their  efforts.  I  spent  about 
half  the  time  with  a  shovel  in  my  hands  myself. 
There  was  scarcely  a  day  when  Ruth  didn't 
come  out  to  watch  the  work  with  an  anxious 
eye  but  after  the  first  week  there  was  little 
need  for  anxiety.  I  think  she  would  have  liked 
to  take  a  shovel  herself.  One  Saturday  Dick 
came  out  and  actually  insisted  upon  being 
allowed  to  do  this.  The  men  knew  him  and 
liked  to  see  such  spirit. 

Well,  we  clipped  ten  days  from  my  estimate, 
which  left  me  with  all  my  bills  paid  and  with  a 
handsome  profit.  Better  still  I  had  secured  on 
the  strength  of  Carleton's  gang  another  con- 
tract. 

The  night  I  deposited  my  profit  in  the  bank, 
Ruth  quite  unconsciously  took  her  pad  and  pen- 


MATURING  PLANS  297 

cil  and  sat  down  by  my  side  as  usual  to  figure 
up  the  household  expenses  for  the  week.  We 
had  been  a  bit  extravagant  that  week  because 
she  had  been  away  from  the  house  a  good 
deal.  The  total  came  to  four  dollars  and  sixty- 
seven  cents.  When  Ruth  had  finished  I  took 
the  pad  and  pencil  away  from  her  and  put  it 
in  my  pocket. 

"There's  no  use  bothering  your  head  any 
more  over  these  details,"  I  said. 

She  looked  at  me  almost  sadly. 

"No,  Billy,"  she  said,  with  a  sigh,  "there 
isn't,  is  there?" 


CHAPTER   XIX 

ONCE  AGAIN  A  NEW  ENGLANDER 

During  all  those  years  we  had  never  seen  or 
heard  of  any  of  our  old  neighbors.  They  had 
hardly  ever  entered  our  thoughts  except  as 
very  occasionally  the  boy  ran  across  one  of  his 
former  playmates.  Shortly  after  this,  how- 
ever, business  took  me  out  into  the  old  neigh- 
borhood and  I  was  curious  enough  to  make  a 
few  inquiries.  There  was  no  change.  My 
trim  little  house  stood  just  as  it  then  stood  and 
around  it  were  the  other  trim  little  houses. 
There  were  a  few  new  houses  and  a  few  new- 
comers, but  all  the  old-timers  were  still  there. 
I  met  Grover,  who  was  just  recovering  from  a 
long  sickness.  He  didn't  recognize  me  at  first. 
I  was  tanned  and  had  filled  out  a  good  deal. 

"Why,  yes,"  he  said,  after  I  had  told  my 
name.  *'Let  me  see,  you  went  off  to  Australia 
or  somewhere,  didn't  you,  Carleton?" 

"1  emigrated,"  I  answered. 

He  looked  up  eagerly. 
298 


ONCE  AGAIN  A  NEW  ENGLANDER     299 

"I  remember  now.  It  seems  to  have  agreed 
with  you." 

''You're  still  with  the  leather  firm?"  I  in- 
quired. 

He  almost  started  at  this  unexpected  ques- 
tion. 

"Yes,"  he  answered. 

His  eyes  turned  back  to  his  trim  little  house, 
then  to  me  as  though  he  feared  I  was  bringing 
him  bad  news. 

"But  I've  been  laid  up  for  six  weeks,"  he 
faltered. 

I  knew  what  was  troubling  him.  He  was 
wondering  whether  he  would  find  his  job  when 
he  got  back.  Poor  devil!  If  he  didn't  what 
would  become  of  his  trim  little  house  ?  Grover 
was  older  by  five  years  than  I  had  been  when 
the  axe  fell. 

I  talked  with  him  a  few  minutes.  There 
had  been  a  death  or  two  in  the  neighborhood 
and  the  children  had  grown  up.  That  was  the 
only  change.  The  sight  of  Grover  made  me 
uncomfortable,  so  I  hurried  about  my  business, 
eager  to  get  home  again. 

God  pity  the  poor  ?  Bah !  The  poor  are  all 
right  if  by  poor  you  mean  the  tenement  dwell- 
ers.    When  you  pray  again  pray  God  to  pity 


300  ONE  WAY  OUT 

the  middle-class  American  on  a  salary.  Pray 
that  he  may  not  lose  his  job;  pray  that  if  he 
does  it  shall  be  when  he  is  very  young;  pray 
that  he  may  find  the  route  to  America.  The 
tenement  dwellers  are  safe  enough.  Pray — 
and  pray  hard — for  the  dwellers  in  the  trim  lit- 
tle houses  of  the  suburbs. 

I've  had  my  ups  and  downs,  my  profits  and 
losses  since  I  entered  business  for  myself  but 
I've  come  out  at  the  end  of  each  year  well  ahead 
of  the  game.  I  never  made  again  as  much  in 
so  short  a  time  as  I  made  on  that  first  job. 
One  reason  is  that  as  soon  as  I  was  solidly  on 
my  feet  I  started  a  profit  sharing  scheme, 
dividing  with  the  men  what  was  made  on 
every  job  over  a  certain  per  cent.  Many  of 
the  original  gang  have  left  and  gone  into  busi- 
ness for  themselves  of  one  sort  and  another  but 
each  one  when  he  went,  picked  a  good  man  to 
take  his  place  and  handed  down  to  him  the 
spirit  of  the  gang. 

Dick  went  through  college  and  is  now  in  my 
office.  He's  a  hustler  and  is  going  to  make  a 
good  business  man.  But  thank  God  he  has  a 
heart  in  him  as  well  as  brains.  He  hopes  to 
make  "Carleton  and  Son"  a  big  firm  some  day 
and  he  will.     If  he  does,  every  man  who  faith- 


ONCE  AGAIN  A  NEW  ENGLANDER     301 

fully  and  honestly  handles  his  shovel  will  be 
part  of  the  big  firm.  His  idea  isn't  to  make 
things  easy  for  the  men;  it's  to  preserve  the 
spirit  they  come  over  v^ith  and  give  them  a 
share  of  the  success  due  to  that  spirit. 

We  didn't  move  away  from  our  dear,  true 
friends  until  the  other  boy  came.  Then  I 
bought  two  or  three  deserted  farms  outside  the 
city — fifty  acres  in  all.  I  bought  them  on  time 
and  at  a  bargain.  I'm  trying  another  experi- 
ment here.  I  want  to  see  if  the  pioneer  spirit 
won't  bring  even  these  worn  out  acres  to  life. 
I  find  that  some  of  my  foreign  neighbors  have 
made  their  old  farms  pay  even  though  the  good 
Americans  who  left  them  nearly  starved  to 
death.  I  have  some  cows  and  chickens  and 
pigs  and  am  using  every  square  foot  of  the  soil 
for  one  purpose  or  another.  We  pretty  nearly 
get  our  living  from  the  farm  now. 

We  entertain  a  good  deal  but  we  don't  enter- 
tain our  new  neighbors.  There  isn't  a  week 
summer  or  winter  that  I  don't  have  one  or  more 
families  of  Carleton's  gang  out  here  for  a  half 
holiday.  It's  the  only  way  I  can  reconcile  my- 
self to  having  moved  away  from  among  them. 
Ruth  keeps  very  closely  in  touch  with  them  all 
and  has  any  number  of  schemes  to  help  them. 


302 


ONE  WAY  OUT 


Her  pet  one  just  now  is  for  us  to  raise  enough 
cows  so  that  we  can  sell  fresh  milk  at  cost  to 
those  families  which  have  kiddies.  - 

Dan  comes  out  to  see  us  every  now  and  then. 
He's  making  ten  dollars  to  my  one.  He  says 
he's  going  to  be  mayor  of  the  city  some  day. 
I  told  him  I'd  do  my  best  to  prevent  it.  That 
didn't  seem  to  worry  him. 

'Tf  ye  was  an  Irishmon,  now,"  he  said,  *T'd 
be  after  sittin'  up  nights  in  fear  of  ye.  But  ye 
ain't." 

I'm  almost  done.  This  has  been  a  hard  job 
for  me.  And  yet  it's  been  a  pleasant  job.  It's 
always  pleasant  to  talk  about  Ruth.  I  found 
that  even  by  taking  away  her  pad  and  pencil 
I  didn't  accomplish  much  in  the  way  of  making 
her  less  busy.  Even  with  three  children  to 
look  after  instead  of  one  she  does  just  as  much 
planning  about  the  housework.  And  we  don't 
have  sirloin  steaks  even  now.  We  don't  want 
them.  Our  daily  fare  doesn't  vary  much  from 
what  it  was  in  the  tenement. 

Ruth  just  came  in  with  Billy,  Jr.,  in  her  arms 
and  read  over  these  last  few  paragraphs.  She 
says  she's  glad  I'm  getting  through  with  this 
because  she  doesn't  know  what  I  might  tell 
about  next.     But  there's  nothing  more  to  tell 


ONCE  AGAIN  A  NEW  ENGLANDER     303 

about  except  that  to-day  as  at  the  beginning 
Ruth  is  the  biggest  thing  in  my  life.  I  can't 
wish  any  better  luck  for  those  trying  to  fight 
their  way  out  than  they  may  find  for  a  partner 
half  as  good  a  wife  as  Ruth.  I  wouldn't  be 
afraid  to  start  all  over  again  to-day  with  her 
by  my  side. 


THE   END 


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